OR
by markmark261
Summary: Hugo Strange returns to haunt Batman. What's his dastardly plot and why is Barbara Gordon keeping secrets from Batman?
1. Barbara Gordon: Murderess

Disclaimer: All major characters and the majority of the minor characters contained in this tale are copyright DC Comics.

OR

Chapter One - Barbara Gordon: Murderess

Here I am, sitting at your graveside. Again. The rain beats down on me and the cold wind blows but I hardly notice them, I'm so lost in my own thoughts, remembering the past.

It all started with The Mad Hatter a long time ago. I was barely a teenager when he kidnapped me, and it was because of that kidnapping that I first met you. You helped me then - you were the only one who could. I remember the long hours we'd spend discussing it, discussing me. You were the first person in a long while to show me any real interest, and that was part of the reason I was drawn to you. We both knew it was wrong, but it happened anyway. Clandestine meeting followed clandestine meeting. Nobody knew, not even Dad. He was too busy with his police work to notice me sneaking out to see you. You were my first love, my first lover. I still remember how you'd insist on wearing your Batman costume while we made love. Happy times. You influenced me more than you'll ever know.

But it wasn't to last. You grew bored of things quickly, me included, and it didn't take long for things to turn sour, but, even after all these years, I've never completely stopped loving you, no matter what you've done.

Rest in peace. I wish I could. You're dead, and I'm responsible. It should have been The Joker but I chose you instead. I wish I'd given it more thought, but I suspect I'd still make the same choice now.

I was hoping that my killing you could have stayed our little secret, but you had to leave your clues, didn't you? Looks like I'll be spending the Winter in Arkham. Still, you've managed to take your biggest secret to the grave. There's only you and I who know it and I'm certainly not going to tell anyone.

Of course it's not the first time you've been reported dead, but I'm pretty sure it'll be the last. Your death always makes the news. The first time I heard about it, all those years ago, was from Jack Ryder. This time it was from Steve Lombard:

"Meanwhile, over in Gotham City, reports have come in that Batman has killed himself. Film at 11."

* * *

The next morning, a teenager purchased a newspaper. "Hey, kid, you look like you've been to hell and back," observed the newspaper seller, giving the boy his change. The teenager ignored the man's comment, and walked away, reading the paper. Without realizing it, he muttered his magic word beneath his breath. Normally the word would summon a hero ... but not today.


	2. Unfinished Words

Chapter Two - Unfinished Words 

Tired of talking to the dead, I decide it's time I confided in someone. This isn't as easy as it sounds. All of my superhero pals will either arrest me or, worse yet, snitch on me to Bats. It can't be a 'civilian' for obvious reasons. It's got to be one of us in-betweeners. I can't tell Lois - it'd end up on the front page. Then I think of Snapper Carr. He's betrayed the JLA, so it's not as if he can have a go at me.

Fortunately he's currently logged on (I guess he's got a lot of time on his hands since the Young Justice gig finished), so within seconds we're communicating online:

  
**_chicksLoveTheCarr:_**_ *clicks fingers* Hi, Barb, long time no hear._  
  
We start off with small talk. I ask him when he's going to introduce me to that Rick guy that he keeps promising to fix me up with. He gives me the brush off by saying that he hasn't been able to get in touch with him recently. After offering him some sympathy about YJ finishing, I get down to business. I ask him if he's heard about Batman killing himself, and, of course, like everyone, he has. And, of course, he knows that it involved someone dressed as Batman throwing someone else dressed as Batman from a penthouse apartment.

We then discuss the Batman that was thrown; the Batman that fell to the Earth and, having said one last word, died. That Batman wasn't, of course, _The_ Batman. That Batman was Dr Hugo Strange, albeit a shaved and spectacles-less Hugo (which we both agree made him look years younger).

Of course Hugo seemed to die on a daily basis. More times than Resurrection Man as Snapper observes. But, I point out, this time there was a crucial difference. This time there was a corpse, a real corpse. It passed all the Allen tests - it wasn't a clone, a mandroid, or a Bizarro. This time he wasn't only really dead, he was really most sincerely dead.

Then we switch to discussing the Batman that threw him to his death. This Batman also  
wasn't the real Batman, but one of those mandroids that Hugo specialised in. Snapper and I then waste a ridiculous amount of time trying to work out what the difference was, if any, between an android and a mandroid, without reaching any sensible conclusions.

Snapper asks how I could be sure it was a mandroid, and it's then that I drop my bombshell. It was me who sent the mandroid.

Following Snapper's expressions of surprise and consternation, and a further clicking of his fingers, I tell him what had happened to me the morning of Hugo's death. I'd received the mandroid in the mail. It was addressed to Barbara Gordon. A letter attached indicated that it was a present from Hugo. Snapper asks me why Hugo would send me a present, and so I reveal to him that Hugo and I had once been lovers, and I warn Snapper not to tell anyone or his fingers won't be the only part of him that are snapping.

We then get on to a discussion of Hugo's fixation with Batman. I tell him that Hugo had always been obsessed with Batman. I'm going to add that he must have become even more obsessed when he found out that Bruce Wayne was Batman, but then realize there are some things that Snapper shouldn't be told. Instead, I admit to Snapper that Hugo had liked to wear his Batman outfit when we were making love. This causes Snapper to come back with a sleazy "To the batpole!" remark. Once I chide him over this, we then get into an equally low-brow discussion about how anatomically correct the mandroid was.

Veering the conversation back on track, I tell Snapper how the mandroid had come with a full set of instructions. Hugo said in his note that he wanted to make amends for the past, that he was sorry that he'd not been there for me after the Joker incident, and that I could use the mandroid to get rid of the Joker if I so wished. I tell Snapper that I sent the mandroid to get Hugo instead. Snapper thinks that killing The Joker would have been a great idea, after all he'd wrecked both our career paths, and can't understand why I'd send it to kill Hugo. I explain that I didn't sent it to kill him, just to apprehend him. I was busy helping the JLA save the universe at the time, and it just seemed like the easiest thing to do. After all, Hugo had been stupid enough to include his address in the letter.

Snapper thinks it's poetic justice that he got killed by his own mandroid, that accidents will happen, and that I can't blame myself.  
  
I tell Snapper that I know it was an accident, but that's not why I'm worried. Hugo left clues.

The moment Batman, the real Batman that is, heard about Hugo dying he was straight over to Hugo's penthouse apartment, after all Hugo knows Batman is Bruce Wayne. It's then that Snapper lets me know that he himself didn't know Batman was Bruce Wayne. I tell him that I thought everyone knew it, and I was surprised that Tim never mentioned it to him while he was looking after Young Justice. From his response it becomes pretty obvious that Snapper also doesn't know Tim Drake is Robin. I tell him to forget everything I just said.

Anyway, Batman wanted to protect his secret identity from the few (such as Snapper) who weren't aware of it, and went straight over to the apartment just to check that there was nothing there that could give his big secret away.

Meanwhile, the mandroid had been taken to police headquarters where he was just about to confess to Hugo's murder. Just as he was about to take his mask off, which had Bruce Wayne's face underneath, the Huntress (who I'd sent there as soon as I'd heard what had happened) turned up and de-activated the mandroid using the magic phrase I'd told her. 

Snapper asks what the magic phrase was, and I tell him "Smelly Cat", the song Phoebe plays on friends. I never figured Hugo to be a Friends fan, but there were a bunch of videos of Friends, along with some videos of _Dinosaurs_ (the sitcom),that Batman found at Hugo's place. Now Batman wants me to sit through the videos looking for clues. Snapper kindly offers to help - he must have way too much time on his hands these days.

Apart from the videos, Batman also found signs of a struggle: overturned furniture, a broken mirror, a knocked-over bonsai. Nothing particularly interesting. Apart, that is, from the letters OR scrawled on the wall in Hugo's blood. Also, there's some unconscious lady in the bedroom, dressed in cheap lingerie and a Batman mask.  
  
Snapper's interest perks up, asking who she is, and I have to admit that we've no idea. Batman took her into his care, just in case she knew anything about his secret identity. A thorough medical examination by Leslie Thompkins revealed that her Batman mask was attached using an adhesive the like of which nobody on this world had ever come across, and short of sending Ray Palmer in with a chisel, the only way that they were going to remove it was to wait a few weeks until STAR labs could fully analyse a sample of the said adhesive.  
The mystery lady herself can't shed any light on who she is because either she's mute and illiterate, or Hugo's done some trick to her mind so that she can't communicate with us. Any attempts she makes to talk come out silent, and, similarly, any attempts to write or gesture tend to go horribly wrong and just make her get really frustrated. Snapper points out that we could just get the JLA to help. J'onn could read her thoughts, Superman could look through her mask. I tell Snapper that I realize that this is the obvious thing to do, but Batman doesn't want to. He wants to figure it own on his own. He's the World's greatest detective. I guess it's a pride thing.

I then tell Snapper, when he asks if there's anything else to go on, that the mystery woman's in great shape. Could be an athlete, a gymnast, a superheroine or just one big red herring. Who knows? She's also got traces of rope burns on her arms and legs, but who knows what weird stuff Hugo subjected her to? Also, all of her hair's dyed black.

Finally, when Snapper asks if that's everything, I tell him that it isn't. We've got hold of Hugo's computer, and we're extracting the information from it even as we speak, and, of course, there's Hugo's final word, as reported by an eye witness. "Joker".

Snapper tells me that I've got nothing to worry about, that Batman will think The Joker did it. End of story. I remind Snapper of the OR. Hugo was trying to write ORACLE. Batman will figure this out in no time. As I pointed out earlier, he's the world's greatest detective. Also, what Snapper and Batman don't know at the moment is I've got a motive. A great motive. I know a secret, a secret I've kept for a while now. I should have mentioned it to Batman straight away, but I was afraid of the consequences it would have for him. Now I'm afraid to mention it because of the consequences it will have for me.

I look at the messages Snapper and I have been exchanging and notice that_ *clicks fingers*_ appears at regular intervals in his messages, every tenth message. He must have it automated, I look at the screen, thinking it must be time for the next one, but the next message I see is:

  
**_hugoAGoGo:_**_ Barbara, dear sweet, innocent Barbara. OR isn't short for Oracle. You, of all people, should know what it's really short for. Hope that sets your mind at rest. See you around. Love, Hugo._  


I shut down my connection to the outside world immediately, not even saying goodbye to Snapper. It isn't the first time in my life that Hugo's got inside my system, but it'll certainly be the last. 


	3. Mad

Chapter 3 - Mad

I don't get much sleep that night, and when I do sleep I get nightmares. But not about Hugo. I dream of Batman coming to me in the night, knowing I've kept a secret from him. He wakes me, a hand over my mouth to stop me screaming, and suddenly starts a hideous transformation. "For you see, Barbara, I am no furshlugginer ordinary Batman," he hisses, "I am a vampire Batman." I wake up in a sweat, vowing nevermore to read dodgy fan fiction directly before going to bed. Still, at least my subconscious managed to get the quote right.

* * *

Today's the day that Batman visits Arkham Asylum to question The Joker. I get a chance to listen in since the boss wants me to record everything. He's looking for clues to Hugo's death and doesn't want to miss any, no matter how small.

I've told Batman about the message from the dead that Hugo sent me (although not the exact contents), and that finding his killer now seems slightly redundant. Batman rightly points out that that message could be from anyone, probably The Joker himself, and that he can't be side-tracked. When I first got Hugo's message there was a small part of me that was relieved. At least I hadn't murdered him completely. But now it looks like I'm back to being a murderess, and it's only a matter of time before Batman finds out.

I only hope that if Hugo really is alive, that I've managed to get him out of my computer system successfully. The files we loaded off his computer managed to infect it with all sorts of sneaky original bits of software, and I can't be sure that I've cleaned it all up. If he's still got a route to it, then I'm not the only one that gets to listen to Batman today.

**_The Joker_**

I hear Batman enter The Joker's cell, and then I hear The Joker speak, but he doesn't seem quite his abnormal self.

"Listen, Bats, this is urgent. You can't trust the dame. Me and her have a lot in common and ..."

At this point, I hear what sounds like The Joker falling to the floor.

"Sorry about that," says The Joker, trying to sound in control, "Must be something wrong with my medication, today. What can I do for you, Batman?"

"Do you know the man in this picture?" asks Batman, presumably showing him a photograph of Hugo.

"Yes, that's Dr. Gordon. He'd been working here for a couple of months. It wasn't until he died that we realized he was Hugo Strange."

Oh no, Hugo was using my name as an alias. It gets worse and worse.

"You know that his last word was Joker?" asks Batman.

The Joker bursts out laughing, which sends shivers down the part of my spine that's still working. "It wasn't me, I didn't kill him, but then I would say that. What possible motive could I have?"

"I had a quick look at Strange's computer records," begins The Batman, "He had quite a way with the ladies. There was one assistant, a Miss Quinzel ..."

"Stop right there. This isn't funny. I'm just a red herring in all this. I'm supposed to pose you an incredibly complicated riddle that, after hours of head-scratching, will lead you to E. Nigma, but I'm not playing anymore. Out! Out I say."

"Why should I believe you," responds Batman, "you're insane."

"Ha ha ha. Of course I'm not. No-one here is insane. That's just what they tell the people of Gotham to help them sleep easily at night. That's just what we get our lawyers to say to avoid the death penalty. If we were really insane you'd have had us shipped out, off the coast of Paradise Island, long ago and be curing us with a purple ray. We're not insane. Insane people couldn't pull off heists, insane people wouldn't be in it for the money. I'm sure you know what real insanity's like Batman and you know it's a lot scarier than we are. Insanity's ugly, it's not just some cute little red-haired girl."

"Spare me the monologue. If you've lied to me, I'll be back," threatens Batman and exits the cell.

"You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!" The Joker shouts as Batman leaves, and then in the background I hear him say something else, barely audible.

While Batman's making his way to The Riddler, I use my computer to boost the volume on what The Joker said, but instead I hear a young girl's voice sadly saying, "You didn't really mean that, Joker, did you?"

"No, no, of course not. Happy now?" replies The Joker.

"Delirious. Now, if you don't mind, I'll follow Batman. I think he might need me later."

When I play the conversation again the young girl's voice is gone.

_**The Riddler**_

Edward Nigma is silent. Batman asks him questions, but he just stays silent. Finally, Batman asks him the question he was waiting for, "Any idea what the letters OR stand for", and Edward Nigma starts talking:

_A boy, injured, is wheeled into the O.R._

_The boy's parent, a surgeon, looks down at the boy on the operating table and says "That's not my son."_

All further attempts to talk to The Riddler lead to silence and eventually Batman leaves.

On his way out, Edwards shouts to him "Tomorrow. A straight line and the square root of 74,529."

* * *

Because I'm still not convinced that Hugo is out of my computer system, I meet Batman that night at the Batcave, face to face. I think that I'll finally get to meet the mystery woman, but he's keeping her in a separate section of the Batcave until he can be sure that he can trust her.

First we go through what I've found from Hugo's computer records.

Hugo, before being a death-prone master criminal, was a psychologist of major repute, and his client list read like a Who's Who. There was one folder on his computer marked SUPERHEROES, and this seemed like a good place to start in tracking down the identity of our mystery woman.

"I'll just go through the list, stop me if you want any further details. The heroes don't give their full names, surprisingly enough, or Hugo purposely left out the details for reasons of confidentiality."

Batman is silent.

"Okay, here goes. There's some kid named Robby with an identity crisis, another kid who says he can see dead people, a guy called Irwin who keeps popping up, a group of heroes with an inferiority complex, ..."

"The Inferior Five? You don't suppose our mystery woman is Dumb Bunny?" Batman says.

"That's what I thought. Making her literally dumb seemed like the warped sort of thing Hugo would do. However, I tried tracking her down through some detective agencies, and this girl Angel at one of them managed to find her straight away."

"Other heroines on the list are Merry, Girl Of A Thousand Gimmicks, who turned out to be not so merry after all. She ended it all when her sea monkeys died."

Batman fails to smile at my attempt at levity, so I continue plodding through the list.

"In the heroes section, there's some guy called Access who seems to have created his own fantasy world. Then there's this S. Knight who had all these weird sexual fantasies about the Freedom Fighters. All that sword swinging and it turns out that the Shining Knight's gay. Who'd have thought it?"

"I think you'll find the S stands for Sandra," interrupts Batman.

"Who was she, a groupie? Anyway, that's about it. There's a few more but they're really obscure."

Hugo also had a file on me. I've still not managed to bring myself to read it. I don't mention anything about this file to Batman.

And then we get to The Riddler's first riddle.

"The surgeon is his mother. The answer's obvious," states Batman, as if his intellect has been insulted.

I know that's not the answer to the riddle, and I know that it's the time for me to share my secret with Bruce. I realize that it could destroy his whole raîson d'être, but I can't keep up the pretence any longer.

"Batman, I need to talk to Bruce."

Batman pulls his cowl back slowly, an unsure look on his face.

"Bruce. Quite a while ago some extra members were added to the JLA, and you asked me to check their backgrounds and run all sorts of medical checks (blood tests, DNA comparisons, etc.) to make sure that they didn't have any criminal affiliations that we didn't know about. I thought this was a bit pointless for most of the members we were adding; Plastic Man was a former criminal, The Huntress came from a mob family, and the less said about Orion's dad the better. Anyway I did those checks, and, trying to impress you, I ran the same checks on the current members. That included you."

"The answer to the riddle is that the surgeon, let's call him Thomas Wayne, isn't the boy's real father."

"The boy's real father is Hugo Strange."

As my words sink in, Batman turns from me, pulls his cowl back over his face, and sits in silence for what seems like an eternity. And then he turns to me and, with an emotionless voice says "All the pieces have fallen into place. I know what OR means and I know who killed Hugo Strange."

"It looks like it's time to call in Nightwing."

* * *

The little red-haired girl's journey had been a waste of time. Slowly she set off back to Arkham. At least she was appreciated there.


	4. Killing Joker

Chapter 4 - Killing Joker

When Batman tells me he knows Hugo's killer, a shiver runs through my body. I have to know who he thinks it is.

"So, who killed Hugo Strange?" I ask, with forced nonchalance, "And what's OR short for, apart from Operating Room?"

"I've known who killed him all along. The only blood in his apartment was the OR on the wall. He staged it all. Hugo Strange killed himself." Batman replies with the maximum theatricality, and then pauses. "As for your second question - you, of all people, should know the answer to that."

Like father, like son.

"Follow me. I think it's best if you look after the woman from now on."

He guides me to where he's holding the mystery woman. She's still wearing the Batman mask but her lingerie's been replaced by an old-fashioned looking dress, which probably came from Dr. Thompkins.

"But you've not let her meet any of us until now, not even Alfred. How do you know we can trust her?"

"I know," he says. "Now go."

He turns his back on us, and starts to walk away. I want to go after him, find out what he's feeling, but before I've got time to act on any instincts, Batman turns around and looks at me.

"Oh, Oracle, one last thing … Make that two. Don't keep secrets from me again, and never ever trust Snapper Carr to keep his mouth shut."

Batman turns away from me and leaves. I don't try and follow him.

* * *

On the drive home, having advised my passenger, who was wearing a Batman mask, to try and look inconspicuous, I phone Alfred.

"Hi Alfred, it's me. How's Bruce?"

"On night patrol. I'm sure he appreciates your concern."

"I hate to ask you this, but did you know Hugo Strange was his father?"

Alfred takes a moment to reply, Bruce obviously didn't feel the matter was worth mentioning to him, but when he does it's with his usual composure.

"I'm sorry, Miss Barbara, but I cannot comment on the matter. To do so would be to break my word, I'm sure you understand."

"Thanks, Alfred. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Miss Barbara."

* * *

Just before we get home, a tall, thin man wanders out in front of the car. Brakes squeal, but too late, and I hear the car thudding into his body. As soon as the car's halted I get out and wheel myself over to the motionless body, laying face down on the ground. Slowly I turn the body over, only to see a familiar face staring back at me … and smiling.

"Peek-A-Boo!" says The Joker and bursts out laughing.

I respond by hitting him in the face, as hard as I can, with a cane I had secreted about my wheelchair. I start to do this repeatedly, producing copious amounts of blood, and notice a couple of things. Firstly, The Joker's laughing even louder, and, secondly, the cane's making a clanging sound when it hits him. Before I can say mandroid, I'm rushing back to the car. The Joker doesn't pursue me, he just laughs louder and louder and louder.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.

I'm in the car and I've locked the doors and I'm reversing out of there as quick as I can, when, in true horror movie tradition, The Joker appears in front of me, running towards the car. As he leaps at the windscreen, I shift into forward gear, causing him to overshoot and land, with a huge thud, on the roof. I then accelerate forwards as fast as I can, hoping he'll roll off the roof and on to the ground behind him, but he holds on tight, his metallic fingers clawing through the car roof. I then apply the brakes full on, throwing him forwards and almost off the front of the car, and then accelerate again. He hangs on tights to the hood, his fingers clawing through the metal, while his legs dangle in front of the car. He's covered from head to toe in his own artificial blood.

"Should have killed me when you had the chance," he screams through the window at me.

"No time like the present," I say as I drive forward with as much acceleration as the car's capable of. But no matter how fast I drive, and no matter how much I swerve, The Joker stays attached like some demonic red hood ornament. Even worse, he's slowly dragging himself closer and closer to me.

Trying to remain calm, and take my mind off things, I start chatting away inanely to the mystery woman: "Have you two met? Some call him the Space Cowboy, some call him the Gangster of Love..."

The Joker mandroid seems to possess an infinite amount of blood, and by now most of it appears to be spurting over the windscreen obscuring my vision. Fortunately, when I'm about to give up on steering altogether, and just stop and see what the mandroid actually wants, The Joker mandroid kindly restores my view by smashing his fist through the windscreen and grabbing my throat.

"Don't worry, I've got him just where I want him," I say with false bravado, turning to my enigmatic passenger, and then realize she's no longer there. While I'm rapidly running out of air, I notice that we're just opposite a mall. After spending my whole life there as a teenager, it seems only fitting that it should all end there. It's late enough that there shouldn't be too many innocent civilians still hanging around, so I decide to head straight there to make my final stand.

Suddenly, the mystery woman's back by my side, with a jack in her hand that she's swinging at The Joker's outstretched arm. Every time she connects I get pulled forwards, but, finally, just as I think I'm going to get choked to death, he lets go of me. Slowly, he turns his head towards my passenger.

"Hey, mystery lady. Can I call you Myst? Here from out of town, eh? Nice dress. Lucky you and Alfred are the same size. Ha Ha Ha. That's it, stay silent, see if I care. Tough audience. Still, stand-up's not easy. Ask Barb, here."

I pull to a stop in the mall car park. This robot's going to pay. Firstly, for damaging my car, and, secondly, for the mental image of Alfred that I've now got permanently etched in my mind.

"Get out and lock the door," I shout at my passenger. Within seconds she's out, and The Joker's dragging himself along the hood towards me for the kill. That's when I do what he's not expecting - I pull him into the car with me. I couldn't grab my cane before, what with one hand steering and one hand trying to remove his hand from my throat, but now I get hold of it and use it on The Joker. We're stuck in a confined space, no room for him to stand up, and no room to swing his arms and legs. On the other hand, I'm used to being confined, so I start systematically attacking his limbs with my cane, whilst relying on my years of experience to dodge and roll with any blows that manage to end up coming in my direction. He knows he's losing and manages somehow to leap back out through the windscreen. As soon as he lands in front of the car, I've already started accelerating and smash into his body. I leave the car and get ready for the kill.

The Joker gets up, smashed and torn, and starts walking towards me. I ignore him and turn my attention towards the mall.

During my early teens, I'd hang out there full time, just to avoid my father and his drinking. Not Uncle Jim, you understand, but my real father. Batman's not the only one with two Dads. Anyway I'd hang round the mall, cadging smokes, scoping out boys, playing at being grown-up. That was me, Mall Gordon, Member of The Teen Tantrum Corps. There were millions of us.

Suddenly I'm snapped back from my nostalgia for those days of unfocused hormones and suicidal diary entries, by The Joker reaching me. I grab hold of him and start moving towards the mall entrance as fast as my wheelchair will take me.

"Want to know the secret of comedy?" I ask him, as I throw his ridiculously heavy body at an upcoming glass door.

I skid to a halt, as his body smashes through the glass door, and he lays there, surrounded by shattered glass lying in the door frame.

He smiles and looks at me.

I smile and look at the door.

He turns and looks at the door. It's an automatic door and it starts to slide open, the remaining glass in the door frame slicing into The Joker's body.

"Timing."

The Joker starts laughing as the door slices him in half at the waist. Suddenly his face just freezes, locked in a smile, like the faces of his namesake's victims. His laughter continues, getting louder and louder.

Myst, as The Joker called her, comes up to me and wheels me back to my car.

"Side-splitting," I say, in my worst Sean Connery imitation, as we pass a few innocent onlookers.

This gets a big laugh. Forgetting the other secret of comedy (always leave them wanting more), I follow it up with "lmao".

Nobody laughs this time, except for The Joker. Everyone suddenly just starts thinking of me as a retard in a wheelchair. If that's not bad enough they probably assume that my carer would rather wear a stupid Batman mask than be associated with me. The mall and alienation - they always went hand in hand.

Still buzzing with adrenaline, I talk to Myst, explaining the joke to her. The fact that she can't reply in any way makes her a good listener. Soon I'm sharing my deepest secrets with her. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

* * *

I sleep peacefully all through the night.

In the morning Cassie comes round to look after Myst while I'm helping Batman during his next round of Arkham visits. She sees the remains of my car on the way in.

"What happened to the car?"

"Nothing really - some Joker ran into it, that's all."


	5. A Case Of MystTaken Identity

Chapter 5 - A Case Of Myst-Taken Identity 

I'm telling Cassie the full story of my run-in with the Joker mandroid, while Myst is taking a shower in order to clean off the remaining traces of the mandroid's fake blood. I'm wearing a polo-neck sweater today for the sole purpose of covering up the remains of a red hand-print round my throat that I couldn't completely remove. That blood got everywhere, even The Joker's hair had gone red. It suddenly strikes me that the reason the mall-goers hadn't laughed at my joke was because they'd thought I'd killed Ronald McDonald, but then I realize that it was more probably because the joke sucked.

Finally Myst emerges from the bathroom, wearing my old dressing gown and a bat-mask. I leave her and Cassie to get acquainted while I monitor Batman's next round of Arkham visits, which were prompted by The Riddler's closing comments. Of course, now that Batman seems to have solved it all, this is all completely pointless, but we have to keep up the pretence so that whoever's behind all this will think that Batman's as clueless as I am. Is it just me, or are things getting ridiculously complicated?

**_Poison Ivy_**

The "straight line" clue apparently means Poison Ivy. I tell Batman that I thought she was more curves than straight lines. He tells me exasperatedly that a straight line angle is 180 degrees, which is pi radians, and Poison Ivy's initials are PI. "Huh?" I respond, and he just mutters "Dick would have understood," and continues walking to Poison Ivy's cell.

Once he reaches her cell, he questions her from behind the shatterproof Plexiglas that keeps her pheromones at bay.

"I need to ask you about Hugo Strange. You probably knew him better as Dr. Gordon."

"Don't believe any feigned ignorance on The Joker's part, Batman. Strange may have called himself Dr. Gordon, but we all knew who he was. He insisted on telling us. He also couldn't resist telling us his master plan, but unfortunately we can't tell you. We've just got to set you a series of riddles - that's the way this all works you see."

"Go on," prompts Batman. He sounds tired. He probably spent all last night double, triple and quadruple-checking my findings. Of course, despite all his hopes, he'd have found them to be right. The same thing's happened to me every time I've rechecked them.

"I've got a story to tell you," begins Poison Ivy, "a story that happened long ago, before you were born. It's a story of two men, Hugo and Tom, who have both since perished in violent circumstances, but that's irrelevant to the tale. These men, who attended medical school together, were once the best of friends, but, of course, there were differences. In a reflection of their medical specialities, Hugo would always follow his head, whereas Tom would always follow his heart. Small differences, but big enough to lead one man to betray the other, big enough to eventually shatter their friendship, big enough to lead to Tom's death."

Poison Ivy concluded, "That's all. Not much of a story. Hope it meant more to you than it did to me."

I hear Batman walking away from Poison Ivy's cell.

**_Mr. Freeze_**

As Batman walks to Mr. Freeze's cell, I try and prove to him that I'm paying attention. "I've been thinking about the square root riddle. There are two answers, as there always are (except for the square root of zero), 273 and -273. Now, -273 Degrees Centigrade is absolute zero, give or take, so I assume Mr. Freeze is next."

"Good girl," Batman replies, "and since there are two answers, we're visiting Two-Face after Mr. Freeze, right?"

"Right, that was just what I was thinking," I reply, lying through my teeth. I'll never get the hang of riddles. I wonder if the villains have as hard a time thinking them up as we do solving them.

Batman's footsteps stop. He's outside Freeze's cell. As he opens the door, I can hear the noise of the refrigeration units inside as they blow out cold air.

Before Batman begins his questioning, Dr. Victor Fries starts ranting at him, "You've done it again, Batman. You've taken away my only hope. My wife Nora died because of you. Hugo said he had a way to bring her back, but then you went and killed him. Do you know what it's like to lose a loved one? DO YOU?"

I hear the cell door closing and Batman walking away. I check through Victor's files and find his wife Nora was a beautiful athlete. Could Nora be Myst? Had someone cleaned an N off the wall before the O and the R? Am I jumping to the completely wrong conclusion? Probably. 

**_Two-Face_**

Batman enters Two-Face's cell. I hear rubbish scrunching beneath his boots, obviously Two-Face's coin landed scarred-face up when he was deciding whether to tidy up today.

"Batman, what a pleasant non-surprise," Harvey growls. "I've got some home-truths to reveal to you."

I hear the sound of a coin being tossed.

"But not today. Come back after your vacation."

"What vacation?" asks Batman.

"You'll see," replies Harvey cryptically, "Oh by the way, what if OR was spelt wrong?"

Batman leaves the cell.

He walks to another cell, opens it, and leaves.

"What happened?" I ask.

"He waved his hand at me," Batman replies.

"That's nice."

"OR spelt wrong is A.W. Arnold Wesker, The Ventriloquist. He was waving his hand, because that's what I'm going to be talking to, once I can find it suitable attire."

"Obvious," I concede, "Back with you in a minute. I better check on your mystery woman."

I find Cassie teaching fighting moves to Myst, and Myst, still wearing that old dressing gown of mine, seems to be a good learner.

"Hey, Nora," I shout, hoping my hunch is right and Myst will recognize her name immediately, but she doesn't so my hunch is probably wrong.

I try and talk to Cassie, but she's all shrugs and gestures. Out of respect for Myst, Cassie's keeping silent as well, in a show of solidarity.

"Why don't you look through my old clothes? See if there's anything there that would suit Myst." I suggest. 

Cassie nods, and leads Myst off to my bedroom.

I go back to my monitors, and resume my listening in on Batman. I hear what sounds like him rummaging around. "What are you doing?" I ask. "The usual. Wading through the garbage … This looks like it will do the trick."

"So what have you found?"

"It's a doll, with big cheeks and a Flash costume. It's going to be The Ventriloquist's new partner."

"Aren't you afraid he'll terrorize Gotham with it?"

"I can't see this little chap terrorizing anyone," Batman says, with almost a tinge of amusement in his voice.

**_The Ventriloquist_**

After all of that searching through garbage cans, the only thing that the toy tells him, once it's in Arnold Wesker's hand, is "The grave and the gold. The grave and the gold."

Batman sets off to dig up Hugo's grave while I do some research for him.

While I'm in the middle of my research, looking up Hugo's known relatives, I'm interrupted by Cassie.

"Ta-da!!!" she says; the first words she's uttered in the last couple of hours. 

I look up and Myst's standing there in some of my old clothes. I have to admit they look better on her than they ever did on me. Of course, she's not wearing the complete outfit - after all, she's already got her own cowl.

"Come on Batwoman, we've got crime to fight," says Cassie, and walks away, followed by Myst.

"Very funny, Cassie, now find her some proper clothes."

"Cassie?"

"Cassie!"

"CASSIE!!!!!" 


	6. The Cat And The Canary

Chapter 6 - The Cat And The Canary

Half an hour after Cassie and Myst leave, I see them on the news. Myst's still dressed in my original Batgirl outfit and Cassie's changed into her current one. According to the reporter, Batwoman (_why would they never call me that?_) and Batgirl have managed to foil a bank robbery in East Gotham. What's Cassie thinking? Myst could get herself killed. I try talking to Cassie over her comm-link but she doesn't respond. Probably maintaining her silent routine because she's with Myst.

While Dumb and Dumber continue their two-women purge on crime, I switch my attention to Batman. He's just dug up Hugo's grave as a result of The Ventriloquist's 'The grave and the gold' clue.

"So, did you find anything?" I ask.

"Gold."

"How much?"

"Nearly all of him. The only thing missing is his responsometer."

"They stole Gold's brain?"

"If Hugo is involved, he'll be using the technology for his mandroids, giving them human emotions. This could make them more dangerous than ever."

"Shall I inform the rest of The Metal Men?"

"No point dragging them into things yet - his responsometer may still turn up."

"And if it doesn't, we'll get a fortune for him on eBay."

"Barbara ..."

"OK, I know. You still haven't forgiven me for when I tried to sell your giant penny, have you?"

Batman doesn't reply. A few seconds later I hear a woman's muffled voice coming over his comm-link. Things then get embarrassing as Batman and the woman, who's obviously Catwoman, start to kiss. I've had to put up with this sort of stuff for months: the Cowl and the Pussycat getting hot and heavy. I turn the volume down and look at my monitors to see if there's any crisis I can be helping the JLA with, when suddenly there's someone at the door.

His name's Jack Marshall, he's a computer expect, and I found his name just after Will Magnus' when I was looking through Hugo's computer files. According to Hugo's write-up, along with the independent research I did myself, he should be able to remove all traces of Hugo, if any still exist, from my system.

First I lay down a few ground rules for him, pointing out how secure my system needs to be and how confidential the data on it is. He removes a small device from his pocket, waves it around, and then grabs a chair, climbs on it, reaches into a dark corner, and produces a microscopically small object.

"It's not been very secure so far," he says, handing me the object, that turns out to be a camera of some kind. How long has Hugo been spying on me, I wonder.

"I thought you only knew about computers?"

"I've been moving into all branches of the security business lately. Your security system here could do with a complete overhaul, if you don't mind me saying."

"But I've only just had a complete overhaul," I groan.

"OK, let's check out your system," he says, changing the subject.

While he's fixing my computer system, I turn to the news and see that Cassie and Myst have just foiled some muggers. I try to talk to Cassie but she's still not answering.

Eventually he's gotten rid of most of Hugo's digital infestation. There's still a few files he's not sure about and he asks me, in a groveling and sarcastic manner, whether I'll allow him to take copies of the precious files home to examine. Having taken a look at the files involved, which didn't actually mean anything to me but I wasn't going to reveal that to him, I agree.

"So what did you have to do?" I ask him as he's leaving.

"It's complicated."

"Try me."

"It'd take a while to explain. How about during dinner. Next Wednesday, say."

"OK, it's a date," I reply impulsively.

"Great. Oh, there was some corrupted RAM I found while running my diagnostics tests. I replaced it free of charge," he says smiling.

"Great. Well, see you next Wednesday."

"Bye."

"Bye. Thanks for the memory,"

Once he's gone, I go back to my monitors, smiling a stupid smile, and check out the latest news on Cassie and Myst. They've escalated their war on crime to capturing a few second-string supervillains. This is getting beyond a joke; Myst could get seriously, if not fatally, injured here. "Mistake!" I shout down Cassie's comm-link. "Sure she does, but she'll get used to it," she replies. Sometimes I get the feeling that Cassie's been hanging around me for far too long.

* * *

My next port of call is The Batcave. Bruce tells me about his encounter with Catwoman, and about what else he found in Hugo's grave besides Gold. There were two letters, one for him and one for me. The one for him contains a destination he has to take Myst to in the morning if he wants to finally solve the puzzle. I ask him why he should bother solving the puzzle, but he just glares at me. I look at the contents of my letter but it doesn't make any sense to me.

I tell him what my research into Hugo's relations has uncovered. Hugo had had another son, before Bruce, who'd followed his father into medicine and become a surgeon, but, following a car crash, his career had been ruined so he'd turned to alcohol and Hugo had never heard from again. There was also a nephew - an archaeologist who Batman had met previously during his JLA adventures. Batman seems particularly interested in the nephew so I give him all the relevant information I managed to gather.

Batman accompanies me home. By the time we get back, so have Cassie and Myst. They're watching Back To The Future on TV, but Batman has to drag Myst away immediately. There's not much time left if he wants to arrive at the destination in the letter at the specified time. I turn my attention to Cassie but she's still in non-responsive mode.

* * *

I wake up early the next day. Not long after, I'm monitoring the Batplane, which is on its way to the destination specified in the letter. An hour into its flight, I'm distracted by an unexpected visitor.

"Hi, Barb. What's shaking?"

"Dinah? I thought you weren't back off vacation until next week."

"I got bored. Missing my action fix. You know how it is?"

"Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, how was the holiday?"

"Boring. Who wants to sit in the sun all day doing nothing? So, what have I missed here?"

"Let's see, what was there? Hugo Strange died. Again."

"Typical."

"And then Batman started investigating the death and ended up discovering Hugo was his father."

"Very Empire Strikes Back."

"And then … did you see my car when you came in?"

"Yeah."

"Don't you want to know what happened to it?"

"Not really. You'd probably just come back with some snappy remark that you've rehearsed in advance."

"Would I do that?"

"OK, so what happened to the car?"

"Nothing really. Some robot was chasing us and wrecked it."

"Very Terminator 2. Who's us?"

"Oh, we found a mystery woman at Hugo's apartment. We're calling her Myst. Cassie's given her my old Batgirl outfit, taught her some fight moves, and all yesterday they were out fighting crime as Batwoman and Batgirl."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. Myst could have gotten killed. After they got back I had a big argument with Cassie about it. Well, I would have done if Cassie had been speaking, but she's not, and that's all because her new best friend Myst doesn't speak."

"You know what your real problem is, don't you? It's Myst. You're jealous of her. She's doing everything that you should be doing now. She's the Batwoman you never got to become. Also, she's stolen your prize pupil Cassie to be her teacher. You're afraid Cassie won't need you anymore."

"Ah, I thought so. The psychobabble gave you away. Beneath that mask you're really Hugo Strange."

"Mock me all you like, but you know that I'm right. Where's Myst now, anyway?"

"Good question. Batman's taking her to a far-off destination to solve this puzzle that Hugo seems to have set him. If you look at that monitor, you can see the camera feed from the Batplane. They should be reaching their destination any moment ... 3, 2, 1, NOW."

Suddenly there's a blinding flash of light and then the picture on the screen goes black. One call to the JLA later, and they're pulling the submerged wreckage of the Batplane from the ocean. Half an hour later and they still haven't found any bodies. Dinah puts her arm round me.

"They'll be okay. Batman's always okay."

"Yeah, of course he is. He's like his father. He'll be back."

* * *

Dinah stays with me for a few hours, but finally, with no progress being made finding the bodies, she has to leave. Not long afterwards, Cassie turns up.

"Where's Myst?"

"Oh, she's out of town for a while," I reply, not wanting to worry her unduly.

"OK. Barbara, can I have some of your old clothes?"

"Sure," I say, and ten minutes later she's walking out with an old red top, a green bikini and some yellow sheets.

"Thanks, Barbara."

As soon as she's gone, I take another look at my letter from Hugo's grave. As with the first time I looked, it leaves me totally confused.

* * *

It's late at night and I'm sitting in a noisy bar. A man leans against my table.

"You're sure you weren't followed?" he asks.

"I'm sure."

"Are they both gone?"

"All sensors indicate that they're no longer on this Earth."

"Good, everything's going to plan."


	7. We'd Like To Know A Little Bit About You...

Chapter 7 - We'd Like To Know A Little Bit About You For Our Files

"So, what do you think?" she asks, parading around in her home-made Robin outfit.

"And you're going out dressed like that?" I reply incredulously.

"You bet. Cassie the Girl Wonder," proclaims Cassie.

"But you can't call yourself Cassie the Girl Wonder," I point out. "It's your real name. Robin's real name was Dick, Jason or Tim, depending on your timing. It definitely wasn't Robin. The last name somebody called Cassie should pick is Cassie."

"Exactly, and that's the beauty of it," she replies with a conspiratorial wink.

At that point, Robin (Tim, rather than Dick or Jason) turns up.

Happy to curtail my conversation with Cassie, I treat her and Tim to a brief summing-up of the Hugo story thus far. I then pass Robin the letter that was left for me at Hugo's grave.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" I ask, not having any idea what I'm actually thinking.

"Drawings of a square and a circle?" he muses.

"Looks like another riddle," I add, showing that I, too, can state the obvious.

"The circle probably represents an angle of 360 degrees," he continues.

"Or 2 pi, the pi will be Poison Ivy, and the 2 will be Two-Face. That's just what I was thinking," I say smugly.

"No, Two-Face hasn't got anything to do with this. Poison Ivy's real name is Pamela Isley. In both cases her initials are PI, which gives us the 2 pi. You really haven't got the hang of this riddle business, have you?" he replies, shaking his head despairingly.

"What about the square?"

"Have you measured it? You'll no doubt find that it's 4 inches by 4 inches."

I find a ruler, and, annoyingly, it turns out that's he right.

"So?"

Tim looks at Cassie, pleading for her to intercede.

"Holy headgear, Barbara," Cassie exclaims, punching her hand for added emphasis, "4 by 4 is 16. So's 10 and 6. 10 and 6 was the price on The Mad Hatter's hat. It's so simple."

"Just testing, kids. Now, Robin, you go and question The Mad Hatter, and Cassie can take care of Poison Ivy." Then, I add, just to show that I've thought things through, "I don't think you're ready to handle them the other way around yet."

They leave quietly, as I suddenly realize that my last sentence was the last thing that I should have said.

Five minutes later I get Robin calling me on the comm-link: "Hi, Oracle, me and Cassie have been doing some talking. We've decided to swap assignments round. Just thought I'd let you know."

I could try arguing with them, but I'm sure it'll get me nowhere, so I have to concede. "OK, Robin, but make sure Cassie ditches the fancy dress outfit before she gets there and gets back into her Batgirl costume."

"OK, Oracle. I'll talk to her. Over and out."

**_Poison Ivy_**

While Robin goes in to interview Poison Ivy, I ask Batgirl to wait outside just in case anything goes wrong. She tells me that it's totally unnecessary but finally agrees.

Inside the cell, Robin doesn't even have time to ask a question before Ivy launches into her monologue:

_Hello, Robin. Come closer. No, closer still. Don't worry - I won't bite. Not if you don't want me to. I've got a story to tell you. It takes place a short, short time ago in a galaxy far, far away. There was a planet called Rann, a city called Ranagar, and a man called Adam - Adam Strange. Just as in this world, the planet's inhabitants did not care for the environment, and eventually, as a result, the landscape became a barren wasteland. Fortunately, the being known as Swamp Thing, shortly after his noble, but doomed, attempt to convert Gotham into a forest, found himself on the planet Rann and managed to convert the wasteland into lush vegetation. The land however was not the only thing that had been barren - no children had been born on Rann for many cycles._

_For those banished from Ranagar, who had been living in the wasteland, the new growth brought new fertility, and babies were born once more. However, for those living in the city of Ranagar, things were not so idyllic. The only child that had been born in Ranagar in recent memory was to Adam Strange and Alanna, and Alanna herself had not survived the childbirth (or so it was thought at the time). The women of Ranagar were not getting any younger and were fearful of falling pregnant lest they too wouldn't survive. An irrational fear, but one that would successfully stop the race dead in its tracks._

_It was about this time that Adam Strange returned to Earth. While he was there, he looked up his sister. She put him in touch with a long-lost uncle who'd gotten in touch with her following the death of Adam's father. That uncle was Hugo Strange._

_When Adam returned to the planet, he returned with a potent cocktail of pheromones, courtesy of yours truly, and fear-inhibitors, courtesy of Jonathan Crane. Following the release of that mixture into the environment, scenes of debauchery beyond your wildest imagination reportedly took place, and nine months thereafter the race of Rann began anew. It was a year ago that the mixture was released, and now, this year, on the anniversary, they'll be releasing it again. Batman and his mystery woman are now on Rann, conveyed there courtesy of a Zeta-beam, and pretty soon now, thanks to my pheromones, they'll be bumping cowls._

"So, that's my story," concludes Ivy, "But stick around a bit longer, won't you?" she continues in her sultriest tones. "I don't get many visitors, and the days and nights are so long and hard. I'd be so, so grateful."

I hear a squelchy noise in the background and suddenly realize that it's the sound of flesh again Plexiglas.

"Sorry, Ma'am, I've got to go now," replies a flustered Robin.

"What's the matter? Has something come up? I can't tell with the way you're holding your cape - so that's why you crimefighters have capes, is it? Don't worry, Boy Wonder. You leave. It's OK, I'll stick to Harvey. He may not be much of a looker, but when he's good he's very good, and when ..."

I hear the cell door closing.

"Robin will stand guard while you're with The Mad Hatter," I reassure Cassie.

"Looks like he's already started," replies Cassie.

**_The Mad Hatter_**

I hear Cassie as she walks towards Jervis Tetch's cell. She's not much older than I was when I first met him. That how's all of this started - following my kidnapping, Dad sent me to Hugo for counseling to help me get over it. I eventually got over Jervis, but I don't think I ever got over Hugo. I'm glad I persuaded Cassie to ditch the Girl Wonder outfit, otherwise Jervis would be drooling all over her. She may as well have gone in wearing a sign saying "Eat Me".

"You know all about The Mad Hatter and Alice?" I ask her.

"Sure, cool game," she replies. "They're making a sequel."

"I guess that would be American McGee's Snow, a platformer mixed with a dwarf-tossing sim."

"No, You've got your facts wrong, Oracle. The sequel's about Oz."

Sometimes my sense of humor's completely wasted on Cassie.

Then I hear the cell door open, and, following that, I hear Jervis's small creepy whiny voice. After all these years, it still disturbs me.

"Hello, dear child. Make yourself comfortable. Have a look around if you'd like ... Would you care for some tea? It contains my own secret ingredient."

"No thanks, Mr. Hatter."

"Call me Mad. And you are?"

"Robyn the Girl Wonder," she replies. Half of me's angry that she didn't change her costume after all, the other half's glad that at least she listened to my comments about the name.

"You've had a sex-change?" shrieks Jervis. Maybe she should have stuck with her original choice of name, after all.

"No, I've always been a girl."

"Of course you have, my dear. I'm dreadfully sorry. Now what can I do to help?"

"Do you know anything about OR?"

"Of course I do, my dear, but you'd have to beat it out of me, I'm afraid. Hugo swore me to secrecy."

"Tell me about Hugo."

"You don't know what crazy, mixed-up kind of insect you're dealing with. Hugo let me set most of the riddles you know. All of the numeric ones are mine. I wanted to use complex numbers for them all - I thought it would be more fitting. You know complex numbers, part real, part imaginary - like my friends. Or are they irrational?"

"Is that everything?" asks Cassie, getting bored of his ramblings.

"He also let me design a hat for his friend. He's not a number. Hey, don't look there, Robyn, I don't want things getting disturbed."

"Don't worry, I'm being careful. Wow, you've got a lot of comic books for a grown-up, and hey, what are these videos? Alice In Chains is the only one I've heard of. They're a cool band."

"What, oh .. eh .. yes. They're my favorite."

"So, Mad, have you got anything else to tell me?"

"That's it."

"No final riddle?" Cassie asks, after my prompting her.

"All of the riddles have run out."

Thank goodness for that. I don't think I could take any more riddles.

Cassie leaves the cell. I ask her if she's OK. She tells me that she's fine. I was afraid her ability to read body language would let her know what was going on in Jervis's mind, but maybe his body language doesn't betray him, maybe it tells a different story altogether, or maybe I've just misjudged Jervis.

* * *

At last The Mad Hatter's given me a clue I understand, and at last watching The Prisoner has paid off. Hugo's friend isn't a number - he's a Freeman. Christopher Freeman to be exact, AKA Kid Eternity. The only problem is that he's supposed to be dead, but then again so's Hugo. One phone call later and I'm talking to his brother Freddy Freeman AKA CM3 AKA Captain Marvel Junior.

"Hi, Freddy. It's Oracle. What can you tell me about Kid Eternity?"

"He's dead."

"That's not what I heard."

"But he's always been dead. That's how he became Kid Eternity. He died before his time, so he got to wander around with a bald guy summoning figures from history."

"OK, how dead is he?"

"Well, Mordru killed him recently, but it still wasn't his time to die so he got back out of Heaven on the same technicality as the first time round. Either that or he summoned himself back to life. It's quite hard getting a straight answer out of him sometimes."

"Is it right that he's an agent of Chaos and doesn't actually summon the historic figures but merely demonic copies of them?"

"I bet you read that on the web. That's so untrue. You don't want to believe everything you read. He's actually on the side of God, but he thinks that's so uncool, so he comes up with all of these stories. He raises people from the dead - it's that simple. They come back in their prime, all their worldly memories intact. It's not a wonder he denies it, otherwise he'd be inundated with requests from all sorts of people, from religious groups to Hollywood producers to Elvis fans. He could bring back Jesus if he wanted to. To put it bluntly, Kid Eternity is the most powerful superhero you'll ever meet. If he ever fell into the wrong hands ..."

"Thanks, Freddy, that's all I needed to know."

So, Hugo's got the most powerful superhero in the world on his side, being controlled by one of The Mad Hatter's hats. Not the best news I've had today.

I look through Hugo's file on Kid Eternity looking for any further information, but I don't find any. While I'm looking at Hugo's files, I also check out what he has to say about Harleen Quinzel. It doesn't make for pleasant reading. It tells in excruciating detail how Hugo took a young innocent girl, manipulated her in any way he saw fit, and then dumped her. She had to go into therapy for months afterwards, and then, just when she thought she was OK, The Joker came along and unraveled her again. I almost feel sorry for her.

And then there's the file I've not looked at yet, Barbara Gordon's file. I open it up expecting a similar write-up to Harley's, intricate details of how Hugo manipulated me without my realizing it, but that's not what I find. I find disturbing details, but that's just my outpourings to Hugo about my alcoholic father and The Mad Hatter. After that I find that Hugo's falling in love with me, and that he's trying to resist me, because I'm his patient and I'm so young and fragile, but he can't. And then I find details of our times together, memories that I'd forgotten, and finally we come to the reason he got rid of me and broke my heart, and I realize my heart wasn't the only one that was broken that day. Hugo got rid of me to protect me. He had a brain tumor that was affecting his behavior, his personality, and Hugo knew this, along with the fact that the tumor would eventually kill him. No surgeon could remove it - well, maybe his son could have done once, before the accident, but it was too late now. And that's where the file ends, except that it doesn't. There's literally thousands of pictures taken of me in the months following our break up. Hugo had been stalking me without my knowing it. I close the file and get back to some other work to take my mind off Hugo.

First I call Dr. Leslie Thompkins to find out if there's been any progress in working out Myst's hair color. She tells me that the sample of hair she took from Myst, that was dyed black, turns out to be exactly the same color when the dye has been removed. It looks like Hugo was just trying to confuse us.

Then I do what I should have done as soon as I learnt about the OR clue. It's time to go back to my old profession: Barbara Gordon, librarian. I go to my library, pick up the dictionary, and then start reading through the O section. It takes a while, but finally I find it. "Gordon, you're a moron," I tell myself when I finally realize what OR stands for - I should have been the first to get it (Hugo and Batman were right). So now I know what OR means, and, because I know what OR means, I now know who Myst is and I'm even suspecting that Hugo's last word wasn't "Joker" after all.

* * *

It's late, but I find myself worrying about Cassie and her encounter with The Mad Hatter earlier today. I try calling her but she's not replying, so I call round. Eventually she answers the door. The encounter affected her more than I realized. She's just been showering, for the umpteenth time that night, but she tells me she just can't get clean. She's already burnt her Girl Wonder costume - it's now just a pile of ashes.

I stay up all night with her, consoling her, comforting her, but, mainly, listening to her. For once she can't stop talking.

* * *

It's Wednesday, and I'm getting ready for my date with Jack. Dinah's come round and we're chatting about things. She offers to have a word with Cassie, who she's not seen since her return, if I think that it'll help. As she passes me my coffee, and she tucks into a chicken and egg salad, we somehow find ourselves discussing mandroids.

"Have you ever thought that you might be one of Hugo's mandroid and just don't realize it?" asks Dinah. "Wouldn't that be just too Blade Runner?"

"I'm sure I'd know," I say, wondering how we got into this conversation in the first place.

"Just kidding. I'm the mandroid round here. The real Dinah's back off vacation tomorrow"

I put down my coffee and assume a fighting position.

Dinah remains sitting down, still eating her salad. "No need for a prolonged fight scene, Barb. It wouldn't really be fair on you - not now that you've drunk your coffee."

As I collapse to the floor, the last thing I hear is Dinah's voice.

"This is the bit where you die ... or maybe I'm just kidding again."


	8. Heroes And Villains

Chapter 8 - Heroes And Villains

I wake up, groggy and disorientated, tied to a chair. Looking around me, one thing's for certain - I'm not in Heaven.

Standing in front of me, from left to right, are Catwoman, The Joker and Hugo Strange. I assume that at least two of them are mandroids. We appear to be in a living room, albeit a giant one, possibly a converted warehouse. In the background, various members of Batman's rogues gallery appear to be busy decorating the place.

I'm not the only one tied to a chair. There's a row of us, starting with me, then a man I've never seen before in a skin-tight red outfit with a "D" on the front, then Kid Eternity (who's got a flying helmet strapped to his head), and, finally, Alfred.

"So, Barbara, at last you're awake," exclaims Hugo. "So, have you worked out what OR stands for yet?"

"Yeah, I know what it stands for, you sick, twisted maniac. How could you even conceive of such a thing? Are you insane?"

Hugo smiles and strokes his beard, which seems to have grown back since he last died. "It seemed like a good idea at the time. As for the question of my insanity, I'd have to answer, and I have to stress that this is purely my professional opinion, yes."

"And what's with the dolls?" I ask.

Catwoman scowls at me while The Joker looks down at me with an affronted look. "We prefer the term action figures," he explains.

Hugo laughs. "Ah, my mandroids - they're part of my sinister master plan. Now that you're all here I think it's time for some long overdue explanations."

Addressing his captive audience, Hugo begins: "I've been known to die in the past, but I invariably return giving some ridiculously incredible excuse as to how I survived. I hate to reveal my secrets, but the truth is I never survive - I just stay dead. Years ago, a brain tumor made me prematurely face my mortality. Fortunately, I also had a patient who could raise the dead. Ladies and gentlemen, could you please give a big hand for … Kid Eternity." Hugo motions towards Kid Eternity with his arm, while the assorted mandroids in the room burst into applause.

"Now, I don't want to bore you good people with science, but, thanks to an implanted post-hypnotic suggestion, whenever Kid Eternity learns that I've died, he automatically raises me from the dead. This is incredibly pleasant, because I hate being dead - Hell's a lot worse than they'd have you believe, trust me. Ironically, Kid Eternity would love to be dead. He got a glimpse of Heaven once but it just wasn't his time. To try and make up for their mistake they gave him the power to raise anyone from the dead, but it was poor consolation indeed. He'd seen Heaven - how could anything else ever compare? Be glad that he's being controlled with that stupid hat from The Mad Hatter, otherwise he'd be moaning about it even now."

"So, now that you all know how I continuously bounce back from death, it's time to talk OR. It's an incredibly sick and twisted idea, admittedly, but I feel that's part of its charm. Tragically, Alfred is the only one here who doesn't know what it stands for, so for his benefit, and his alone, allow me to elaborate."

"Once upon a time, there was a great man. He solved riddles and consulted an oracle and eventually found out that he'd murdered his father and married his mother. OR - Oedipus Rex, the play by Sophocles. Need I say more? Anyway, I thought it was time to re-enact this tragedy so I got Kid Eternity to bring back Bruce's dear departed mother. I then clouded her mind with some tricks I'd picked up from Lamont Cranston (otherwise she'd have been moaning that she wanted to go back to Heaven after a day or two), and then did some of my home-made mind tricks to stop her from communicating altogether (for reasons that will hopefully one day become apparent). And finally, so that no-one could possibly recognize her, I glued a Batman mask on her."

"Where did the adhesive come from?" I have to ask, "STAR Labs would like to know."

"Oh, Access introduced me to his friend Pete who's an expert on that sort of thing," Hugo replies, without really helping my understanding in any way. Without elaborating any further, he goes back to describing his plan:

"However, I was still in two minds about whether or not to go ahead with the plan, so I got you, Barbara Gordon," he points towards me, "to decide. I let you choose whether my Batman mandroid would visit The Joker or me. You chose me. You didn't know that I'd already instructed the mandroid to kill me if you made this decision. I hope that the result of your action didn't lead to too many sleepless nights, Barbara, I really do. Ideally, I should have got the real Batman to kill me, if I was to stick to the Oedipus story, but I didn't want to make the meaning of OR too obvious for him. Besides, Batman's killed me enough times inadvertently in the past, and, the next time we meet, I suspect that he'll be killing me again."

"So, the mandroid Batman kills me, and I leave the OR clue, and direct you to Arkham Asylum. I'd been working there for over a year, studying the villains so that my mandroid copies would be perfect. And, it was during Batman's first visit to Arkham Asylum that you entered the story, Boston Brand," Hugo puts his hand on the red-clad man's shoulder. Boston's got tape over his mouth preventing him from speaking. Hugo continues "As Deadman, you inhabited The Joker's body and tried to warn Batman. Fortunately, the Kid knows everyone in, or around, Heaven (it's a pretty close-knit community) and figured out who you were straight away. He said his magic word and you were yanked out of The Joker's body and back to life. Don't worry, Mr. Brand, we'll look after you. We're not going to risk you dying, you're more dangerous to us dead than alive."

"Anyway, soon after that, Barbara takes Batman's mother home with her. I really wanted her to stay with Batman, so their relationship could blossom, so I sent my Joker mandroid to capture you, Barbara, so that Batman would take her back. Unfortunately, it seems I underestimated your resourcefulness."

"I see you managed to put him back together again," I say, nodding towards the Joker mandroid.

"No, that was an old model," replies the Joker mandroid, "Artificial blood - whatever was Hugo thinking of? I'm the new, improved version. If you want a demonstration, I could kill you later."

"Joker, we don't kill the guests unless I say so. Is that clear?" states Hugo sternly.

"OK. Hugo boss," hisses The Joker through clenched teeth.

"Don't forget that, Joker. I can always make a newer, more improved version of you if I need to," warns Hugo, and then he turns his attention back to us. "Back to the story. Eventually the trail of clues I'd planted at Arkham led Batman to my grave, and a responsometer-less Gold. I'd used what I learnt examining that responsometer to build my mandroid Catwoman, who, at my graveside, managed to fool even Batman himself and, during their passionate clinch, managed to attach a tracking device to him."

"Thanks to that tracking device I knew when Batman and his mother were transported to Rann, where hopefully they got to know each other better. I can see from your face, Barbara, that you find this whole affair sordid, disgusting, depraved, repellent, et cetera, but it's really all a matter of perspective. What you call incest, I call family entertainment. We'll just have to agree to differ."

Hugo walks over to Alfred. "So, Alfred, what do you make of all this? It's hard to tell from your expression."

"Well, it appears that those imaginative profanities that the ruffians hurl in Batman's direction will finally be accurate."

Hugo tries to hide a smile and turns his attention back to me. "Around the same time, you, Barbara, had finally called an expert in to stop me accessing your computer system."

I quickly add "And to get rid of that miniature camera you had watching me."

Hugo professes his innocence. "What camera? You must be imagining things, Barbara. Maybe, if we've got time later, we could discuss these feelings of paranoia that you harbor. Anyway, with my connection to your computer removed, I had to find a new way to keep you under surveillance."

Catwoman leans forward and her face meets mine. "That's where I came in. Remember me?" she asks, but her voice is Black Canary's. She sees the surprise on my face. "That's right, Barb, I was the cat and the canary."

"Why, you evil little … unghh". My sentence is cut short by her fist hitting my face.

"Now, now, Barb. I thought we were friends. After all, while you were unconscious I looked after your boyfriend for you."

"Jack? What did you do to him?"

"Nothing that he didn't want me to do. Oh, by the way, he analyzed those files that he took away and it looks like some of your security system's files may have been overwritten. No wonder a mandroid could just walk into your lair without setting off any alarm bells."

"Ladies, ladies," Hugo interrupts, "there'll be time for mindless chit-chat later. That tracking device indicated that Batman returned from his trip to Rann a few hours ago. Soon, he'll be paying Two-Face a return visit. I better freshen up. While I'm away my mandroids will keep you entertained."

"So, like I asked before, what's with the dolls?" I ask once again.

"These dolls, as you so eloquently put it, will replace the originals. Once I've finished with the upcoming father-son reunion, I intend to destroy Arkham Asylum along with all of its inhabitants. Soon my mandroids will be running all the crime in Gotham City. Any more questions? No? Good. And now I must temporarily bid you farewell."

As soon as Hugo leaves, The Joker looks at me and, as always, smiles. "So, if I got Hugo right, we can do anything we like with you as long as we don't kill you."

Catwoman purrs and runs a claw down the side of my face. "So, you're tied to a chair, and it looks like we get to torture you. Very Reservoir Dogs."

"I guess that makes you the clown to the left of me," I point out, "because Joker's to the right ... unnggh."

This time the fist comes courtesy of The Joker. "I tell the jokes here," he whispers in my ear, by way of explanation.

"So, what shall we do with her?" shouts Catwoman to the mandroid rogues gallery, who are slowly but steadily gathering round me.

"Punish her! Violate her! Terminate Her! Spawn!" is The Mad Hatter's helpful suggestion.

"Jervis, don't take me so seriously. I'm only kidding around with her for crying out loud." Catwoman takes out some chewing gum, unwraps a stick and places it in her mouth. "Look at me, the ultimate mandroid - I can talk and chew gum at the same time."

"Why do you let Hugo stay in charge?" I ask, hoping to start some sort of mutiny. "You should branch out on your own. You don't need Hugo."

"But Hugo knows all our weaknesses. All he has to say are his magic little words and we'll just seize up. Want some gum?"

Catwoman offers me a stick of gum, but I decline.

"Hey, Toots, can I grab your gum?" shouts the mandroid behind her.

"Don't even think about it, Scarface."

* * *

Hugo rushes in, brandishing a gun, and turns on a big plasma screen in the corner of the room. The picture shows the inside of Two-Face's cell. It's spotless - obviously his coin landed good side up today.

We all watch the screen, getting bored, waiting for something to happen, when Batman makes his entrance.

"So, Harvey, are you ready to tell me anything yet?"

Harvey tosses his coin, looks at it. "The scarred side's facing upwards. I guess it's time to tell you the truth."

Harvey sits down at a table, rolling his penny along his knuckles, as he talks to Batman.

"Hopefully you've gathered by now that Hugo Strange is your father. So, you're probably wondering how this came to be? Did your mother commit adultery? Or did Hugo force himself on her? Alas, this was not what took place. Let me tell you how the man you thought to be your father first met your mother. Your mother was dating Hugo Strange. Your father (or rather the man you thought was your father), being friends with Hugo, would hang out with them on various occasions."

"One dark, rainy night, your father (Hugo wouldn't reveal his name to me, so forgive my stilted narrative) was awoken from his sleep by a banging on the door. Donning his dressing gown, he descended the stairs and opened the door. There in the doorway, wet, disheveled and crying, was your mother. She was pregnant by Hugo, Hugo had told her to get rid of it, and she wanted your father to perform the abortion. Your father, not being able to father children himself (have you ever wondered why you were an only child?), offered to raise the child as his own. Your father would have an heir, the family fortune would be passed on to future generations."

"The only fly in the ointment was Hugo. Your father's wealth kept him out of the picture, first through lawyers, and, when that failed, through hired muscle. Hugo disappeared from Gotham for a long time."

"And that's everything, except for one thing."

Harvey remains silent, waiting for Batman to speak.

"Poison Ivy. She said that my father's betrayal of Hugo led to my father's death. Did Hugo kill my parents?"

"No, Hugo wasn't around at that time. He didn't lead to your parents' death. A young boy who insisted that his parents took him to a Zorro movie - he was the one that led to your parents' death. If not for him, they'd still be alive today."

Batman stands in silence, his emotions unreadable.

"Hugo's waiting for you, Batman. In the Batcave. Nice talking to you, we must do it again sometime."

Hugo switches off the plasma screen. "So, do you like what we've done with the place?" he asks me, his arms outstretched.

"Why are you doing this to Batman?" I reply, ignoring his question.

"The Rann thing wasn't to get at Batman, it was to get at his mother," Hugo calmly explains. "I've got something much worse planned for Batman. It's for his own good, though. I'm his father, you see. I've got his best interests at heart. You've got to understand why Bruce became Batman in the first place. Following that traumatic night in Crime Alley, he could have become a politician, lobbying for gun control, or followed in his father's footsteps and become a surgeon or a paramedic saving gunshot victims. Instead, he devotes his life to fighting crime, but it's a war he can never win. There's only one possible outcome - eventually he'll be killed. Bruce doesn't know it, but subconsciously he blames himself for the death of his parents. He sat there crying when he should have been calling for medical help (although it's unlikely that it would have helped). And because he blames himself, he's subconsciously killing himself. Becoming Batman may be a slow way of committing suicide, but it's a sure way. He needs someone else to blame, and after today he'll be blaming me."

He moves over to Kid Eternity and whispers something to him.

"Time for a quick rehearsal before Batman arrives. A classic from the past."

"Eternity," says the Kid of the same name.

A man appears. He looks around confused.

"Eternity."

A woman appears. She looks at the man, then at Hugo, and her face turns white.

"Bye, Thomas," says Hugo as he pumps bullets into the man.

The woman screams.

"So long, Martha," says Hugo, pressing the trigger one last time.

"So, Barbara. Think he'll like it?"


	9. Victor Hugo?

Chapter 9 - Victor Hugo?

Thomas and Martha Wayne's lifeless bodies are lying on the ground. It's a sight that will stay with me forever, and it's no wonder that Bruce can never erase this scene from his memory. However, after a word from Hugo, Kid Eternity manages to erase the scene with just two words.

As my mind tries once again to comprehend the lengths Hugo will go to in order to destroy Batman, another question occurs to me.

"How did Kid Eternity summon Martha Wayne?" I ask Hugo. "Isn't she already here?"

"No, Barbara. You're jumping to conclusions. Martha Wayne isn't Bruce's natural mother."

"So, who's Bruce's natural mother?"

"She's the one that just got back from Rann. Try to keep up, Barbara."

Great. Just as I think I've got Myst figured out she goes back to being a mystery again.

Suddenly, Catwoman sits down on Boston Brand's lap, straddling him, and puts her gloved right hand on the back of his neck and pulls his face towards hers. In a voice that she's made just loud enough for me to overhear, she says "Hugo says we're going to Metropolis next. He's going to use the Kid to re-unite Superman and Zod. Should be fun. Anyway, that means you get to stick around with us a bit longer. That means we'll get to have fun again, like we did before Barbara and Alfred showed up. You can tell me about your circus days again, and I can give you the Greatest Show on Earth. Maybe I can wear the Black Canary outfit again - you liked the fishnets. Very Chicago."

As Boston's face transforms in color to match his costume, I ask Hugo another question.

"You realize Batman's always beaten your mandroids in the past. Apart from their responsometers, what makes these mandroids so special?"

"Nice of you to show an interest in my work, Barbara," Hugo replies with a smile. I'm actually trying to measure my enemy's strength, but Hugo's too vain to realize this and starts to boast about his creations:

"None of the ideas behind their design are actually original. A little bit from Niles Caulder's Robotman here, a little bit of Will Magnus' Metal Men there. Also, I had a child prodigy Bernard who contributed an incredible amount. Of course, all the really good android designs I couldn't get my hands on - I would have liked to have seen some of Ivo and Morrow's designs, and, even with Access' help, I never managed to get Horton's and Von Doom's designs. However, when you mix all the bits I did get together, give or take the odd secret ingredient, you get the ultimate in humanoid robots - my mandroids."

"But they must have a weakness?"

"If they did, Barbara, I wouldn't tell you. Do I look stupid?"

"No, just insane."

"That's right and don't forget it." Hugo turns his attention away from me to look at a device in his hand. "Batman's going to be here in a few seconds, mandroids. Get into position."

The mandroids start to walk towards the entrance. The Ventriloquist stops on his way there, turns, and walks over to me. "When this is over, Garg, Gang Gang" Scarface says to me, with a wink and a nod of his head, waving his machine gun at me. "But first, I've got some gullets wit' Gatman's name on 'em."

Then Batman enters the Batcave and makes a beeline directly towards Hugo. The mandroids throw themselves at him, but they don't slow him down. Not at first. But as they pile on him, Ventriloquist after Scarecrow after Mad Hatter after Poison Ivy after Catwoman after Two-Face after Joker after Mr. Freeze after Killer Croc, he's finally slowed down and brought to a halt. Struggling, he's chained to a large oak chair in the center of the room, and Catwoman pulls his cowl back revealing Bruce Wayne's face.

Hugo then starts to tell Bruce slowly and calmly about his plan and about what OR stands for. Bruce sits there silently.

"So, that's all you need to know, Bruce. I realize that I might not have been the best father to you, and it's probably too late to make amends, but let's see if this helps…"

Hugo walks over to Kid Eternity and whispers in his ear.

"Eternity. Eternity."

Thomas and Martha Wayne appear once again. Bruce stays silent, not showing any emotion, but his eyes tell a different story.

"Now, I realize that all these years you've been blaming yourself for their deaths," Hugo says, producing a gun, "but here's where all that changes."

Hugo slowly aims his gun at the Waynes, as they hold on to each other, waiting for the inevitable. I look at Bruce. Suddenly green smoke starts pouring out of his mouth. I see the terror in his eyes, and we both realize, just before his head explodes: Even a mandroid can die.

Batman's exploding head fills the Batcave with green smoke, and then, through the smoke, I spot him. The _real_ Batman's arrived.

Everything's going to plan. Batman's been ahead of Hugo all along, ahead of all of us. He guessed what OR meant, so he sent Dick to Rann in his place, along with the tracking device that Catwoman attempted to plant on him.

Meanwhile, Batman paid a visit to Access and went on vacation to a different Universe, upgrading his weaponry. I don't know what his new batarangs are made of, but they slice straight through the mandroids. One cuts Two-Face's head in two, separating the good from the bad, while another goes through The Joker's neck and the next second he's literally laughed his head off. A third batarang slices through the top of The Ventriloquist's arm and Scarface plummets to the ground. Another batarang slices through Mr. Freeze's weapon, which, as it's contents escape, leaves Freeze and Killer Croc frozen in blocks of ice. Then Batman's firing ropes from his wrists, swinging around the Batcave, and firing nets at the mandroids. Finally, the smoke clears and all the mandroids are defeated.

The Waynes are lying, shaking on the ground, and Hugo's pointing his gun at them. "So, Batman, we seem to have reached a stalemate."

"Go ahead, Hugo, you poor deluded creature. Kill them. It'll just remind me why Batman's still needed. By the way, your plan failed. It was Nightwing who went to Rann with my mother, not me."

"Oh, Bruce, you're no fun. Looks like it's time for Plan B."

"And what's Plan B?"

"I am," says Catwoman, ripping through the net that was holding her captive.

Batman throws a batarang at her, but she just catches it.

"Expensive stuff, Adamantium," explains Hugo, "I could only afford enough for one mandroid. Now, Catwoman, take care of Batman while I get rid of the Waynes."

Catwoman launches a lightning attack on Batman. For a few seconds he manages to counter each of her blows, but then she manages to get the better of him, as he's distracted by the gunfire and his mother's screams. As his parents breathe their final breaths, Batman's lying on the ground helpless, Catwoman still lashing out at him.

"Hey, Black Canary, we've got unfinished business," I shout at Catwoman, as I slip off the ropes that were binding me (no problem for someone who's had escapology lessons from Batman and Mister Miracle). I don't stand the remotest chance of surviving a physical encounter with her, but I know that the only person here who can stop her is Hugo, and I'm hoping his feelings for me aren't completely dead.

"OK, Barb, if that's what you want," says Catwoman, switching to Black Canary's voice, and starts to walk towards me. Hugo watches dispassionately as she approaches me. It looks like my gamble might not pay off.

Catwoman kneels in front of me, unwraps the rope from around my legs, and casts the rope aside. She then stands up and, carefully removing my glasses, whispers "Bye, Barb." She reaches out for me with her arms and I swerve to avoid her, but she's anticipated my move, and the next thing I know she lifts me up over her head and throws me towards the wall. I bounce painfully off the wall and land on the ground.

"That's enough, Catwoman," Hugo says. Looks like my gamble might pay off after all.

Catwoman opens her mouth and says, in Hugo's voice, "Kid Eternity. Send Hugo back to Hell."

"Eternity," says Kid Eternity.

"Jo…" says Hugo Strange, and then he's gone, before he can finish his word. The word that will shut down Catwoman. Fortunately, I know what the word is. The word that Hugo was trying to say when he died, the name of Oedipus' wife and mother.

Catwoman does some fancy back-flips over to Kid Eternity and knocks him unconscious with one swift kick. "Don't want him bringing Hugo back now, do we?"

Catwoman walks over to me, lifts me up by the neck, and is just about to punch me when I manage to gasp the word:

"Jocasta."

Catwoman stops dead.

And then she punches me. "Wrong word." And then she punches me again. And again. And I see blood on her gloves, and realize it's mine.

"Hold it right there, Catwoman."

Catwoman hears the voice, throws me aside, and turns round. "Who has the gall?"

"I've got the galls, Sister, now eat lead," says Scarface, and then unleashes a hail of bullets at Catwoman from his machine gun.

Catwoman falls over. Scarface stands triumphant. "I'm the goss now. You're witnessing the girth of Gotham's greatest crime lord," he shouts. Then he turns his head towards Boston Brand.

"Are you laughin' at me, Goston Grand? Do you find me amusin'? Do you think I'm a guffoon? An imgecile? Let me tell you somethin', you're gonna wake up tomorrow lying on a slag."

Boston continues laughing, despite the tape on his mouth. He wants Scarface to kill him. That way Boston can find another body to inhabit and hopefully get some help.

Scarface turns round and starts walking to Boston. It's then that I spot what's making Boston laugh. The Ventriloquist's arm's dangling behind him like some bizarre tail. Unfortunately it makes me laugh as well, and, since my mouth isn't sealed up like Boston's, my laugh is even louder. Scarface turns his attention my way.

"What's so funny, Gargara Gordon? I can understan' that gig gagoon Goston laughin' at me, but you? Think you're a gig shot gecause you used to ge Gatgirl."

He turns his machine gun to point at me, and continues talking.

"Don't think you're getter than me. I can geat any superhero, you name 'em. Gooster Gold, Logo, Glue Devil …"

I bite my tongue to keep myself from laughing, and pray that he doesn't try and say Bwana Beast. Meanwhile, through it all, Alfred manages to keep the same straight face - if anything he's looking a little bored by it all. And then I see Catwoman, behind Scarface, starting to stand up.

"Behind you!" I shout at Scarface.

"Don't try and gamgoozle me, Gargara. I wasn't gorn yesterday."

"Hey, little man. We've got unfinished business," says Catwoman, tapping on Scarface's shoulder.

Scarface turns round to see her and exclaims "Good God!"

"Thanks, I work out a lot," she says, picking Scarface up.

"Hey, gage, no hard feelings. Hey, what are you doin'?"

"Don't call me gage," she replies as she pulls The Ventriloquist's arm out of Scarface. "I've always fancied being a ventriloquist," she continues as she places her arm into Scarface and then turns Scarface as she works her arm further and further into him.

"Aargh, my gutt! Aargh, my guts. Aargh .."

"No more gargled goggledygook?" Catwoman asks, her hand now sticking out of Scarface's mouth. "What's the matter, Scarface? Cat got your tongue?"

She then tosses the limp Scarface aside and gets back to me.

"So, Barb, where were we? Ah yes, I remember."

And then she starts punching me again - I guess I should be thankful that she's given up ventriloquism.

And then she's seeing how far she can throw me. Fortunately I land without any injury.

"Oh dear. It looks like I've broken my Barbie," she says as she looks at me with wide eyes.

I don't know what she's talking about, and then I look down and see that my left leg's going off at an odd angle. Suddenly I feel nauseous.

And then Catwoman's punching me again, and then everything goes black.

* * *

"Hi, Barbara, remember me?"

"Should I?"

"You've stared me in the face enough times."

"Death? Shouldn't you have a scythe?"

"I sometimes do. People see me different ways. Sometimes I'm carrying a scythe, sometimes I'm wearing an ankh, sometimes I've got a suit of armor and skis. The permutations are … Endless."

"Are you here for me?"

"No … not yet, but you must be pretty near death if you can see me. Actually, I'm running a bit late. I've come to pick up Hugo, again."

"Could you ask him how to shut down Catwoman?"

"No, it's against the rules, I'm afraid. Maybe he left you some sort of clue … Boy, this place sure has changed since my sister used to hang out here?"

"Sorry?"

"She used to have a crush on Batman, so she'd hang out down here and hero worship him. She pretended to be a magical imp and he believed her. Simpler times, but you won't remember any of that, it was before the big merger. Shouldn't really have mentioned it - first rule of Mite Club."

"Not another film reference. You're sounding like Black Canary, I mean Catwoman, I mean … film reference … that's it. Thanks."

* * *

Another punch connects with me.

"Joshua."

Catwoman stops mid-punch. I wait a few seconds just to be sure that she's not pretending, but this time she isn't.

"Very War Games." I say, and then everything goes black, but this time I don't meet Death, just some kid claiming to be related to her.


	10. Bad News

Chapter 10 - Bad News

**_chicksLoveTheCarr:_** clicks fingers Hey, Barb. I've finally worked out what OR stands for.

**_hotWheelz:_** Judas! Benedict Arnold! Traitor! Etc.

**_chicksLoveTheCarr:_** Sorry?

**_hotWheelz:_** Our last conversation. You told Batman about it. Remember?

**_chicksLoveTheCarr:_** But I didn't. Honest.

**_hotWheelz:_** Yeah, sure. How did Batman find out about it then?

**_chicksLoveTheCarr:_** I don't know, but I didn't tell him. Maybe he hacked into your computer?

**_hotWheelz:_** thinking aloud Maybe he installed that hidden camera that Jack found?

**_chicksLoveTheCarr:_** Pardon?

**_hotWheelz:_** Nothing. I guess I'll have to give you the benefit of the doubt.

**_chicksLoveTheCarr:_** Who's Jack?

**_hotWheelz: _**We almost went on a date last week.

**_chicksLoveTheCarr: _**That reminds me. Rick's been back in touch. Are you still interested in me fixing you up?

**_hotWheelz:_** I've already got Dr. Thompkins fixing me up, thanks. Rick'll have to wait.

**_chicksLoveTheCarr: _**What happened?

**_hotWheelz: _**Nothing important. Just got involved in a Cat fight. I'll be stuck in bed for the next few weeks. Then again, you should see her. She may never move again.

**_chicksLoveTheCarr: _**Anyway, as I said before, I've worked out what OR stands for.

**_hotWheelz:_** Oedipus Rex?

**_chicksLoveTheCarr:_** Good guess.

**_hotWheelz:_** Sorry, Snapper, but you're too late. It's all over, give or take.

**_chicksLoveTheCarr:_** clicks fingers So, what happened?

**_hotWheelz:_** Long story. I'll tell you next time I see you. Suffice to say, it all ended up with Hugo Strange back where he belongs and Batman and yours truly lying dying in the Batcave. Alfred and some guy you won't know called Boston couldn't help, they were all tied up. Fortunately Harold had gone into hiding the moment Hugo arrived at the Batcave, and he came out of hiding, released everyone and saved the day.

**_chicksLoveTheCarr:_** Who's Harold?

**_hotWheelz:_** The mute diminutive hunchback electronics genius who lives there maintaining Batman's equipment.

**_chicksLoveTheCarr:_** That would have been my first guess. So, he's Batman's elf?

**_hotWheelz:_** No, that was Death's sister.

**_chicksLoveTheCarr: _**Huh?

**_hotWheelz:_** Sorry, just this weird near-death vision I had. Also, we found Gold's brain.

**_chicksLoveTheCarr:_** I didn't realize he'd lost it.

**_hotWheelz: _**Yeah, Hugo stole it. We found out that he disposed of it for a tidy profit on eBay, and finally managed to track down the buyer.

**_chicksLoveTheCarr:_** So, how's Batman.

**_hotWheelz:_** Dr. Thompkins told him it would take a month for him to be battle-worthy again. After three days of recuperation he was back on patrol. Maybe Hugo was right about Batman's death wish.

**_chicksLoveTheCarr:_** Sorry, I've got to ask. What happened Oedipus-wise?

**_hotWheelz:_** Oh, that. This is where the story, which started as a mystery and veered towards tragedy, suddenly plunges into soap-opera. Hugo sent Batman and his mother to Rann to make the beast with the two bats so to speak, but Batman and Nightwing pulled the old switcheroo. Anyway, following all the near-death fun and frolics, Kid Eternity started sending the outstanding corpses back to Heaven. First, he sent Boston Brand and then, after Nightwing had turned up with her, it was the mystery woman's turn. Kid Eternity said he couldn't send her back, not while she had a life inside her. It appears that her visit to Rann's left her pregnant, and now Batman and Nightwing aren't talking anymore. It'll get really good if Nightwing decides to marry her. Suddenly he's Batman's father and he's his own grandpa.

**_chicksLoveTheCarr:_** So, is that everything sorted out?

**_hotWheelz:_** Well, STAR Labs still keep promising that the mystery woman's mask will be removed any day now. J'onn's going to be popping over and trying to undo the mind tricks that Hugo did on her. There's an Adamantium Catwoman mandroid that we need to de-activate fully. Unfortunately we can't get to it's "brain" using tools of any kind (they just break on the Adamantium), so The Atom's shrunk down to get in there and is currently bouncing around Catwoman's brain trying to sort things out. There's also other various surviving mandroid replicas of Batman's foes at a loose end now that Hugo's left them for lower places. Alfred says that they're quite a nice bunch when you get to know them - I guess if Hugo had given them the real villains' personalities he'd never have been able to control them. Batman says he's thinking of using them in a Danger Room, whatever one of those is. And then there's the question of who the mystery woman actually is, since it turns out that she's not Martha Wayne. I need someone to go back in time and do some detective work.

**_chicksLoveTheCarr:_** It's a shame Tyler's not around anymore.

**_hotWheelz:_** That's OK. I'm phoning Rip Hunter (he owes me a favor) even as I type.

**_chicksLoveTheCarr: _**So what's he going to do?

**_hotWheelz:_** He'll follow her after she gives birth to Bruce and find out who she is and what happens to her. He's just left the phone to go and do it. Now he's back - he's just followed her for ten years, on and off, don't you just love time travel? So, he's told me her name, doesn't ring any bells, and she left Gotham, still a teenager, and she married a man and had a son and the man's nam

* * *

I stop typing mid-sentence. Everything makes sense now: the rope burns, Boston's comment, as The Joker, that he and Myst had a lot in common, why Hugo needed to keep her face covered and her mouth shut. The secrecy wasn't for Bruce's benefit.

I don't want to tell Batman, but he was the one who told me not to keep secrets from him. Seconds later I'm talking to him on a secure communications channel:

"Bruce, I've got news. About your mother."

"Go ahead, Barbara."

"Well, it's like this. After you were born, your mother left you to be brought up by Thomas and Martha, and she …"

"Spit it out, Barbara."

"She ran away to join the circus."

THE END


	11. Author's Notes, Deleted Scenes, Annotati...

Author's Notes, Annotations, Deleted Scenes, Etc.

**Introduction**

The story's now complete. If you don't want to read this section then you're perfectly within your rights and I'll understand and I can only thank you for making it this far. For those of you who are still sticking round, here's a ridiculously detailed look behind OR (think of it like the special features on a DVD. Who knows, I might even throw in an Easter Egg along the way).

It all started out so innocently. I was trying to think of a way to mess up Batman's origin (like I'd messed up The Hulk's origin in my story The Physics Lesson (first in a long line of shameless plugs)). Batman's origin, as if you needed telling, is that his parents were killed. I wondered what it would do to Batman if he found out that this wasn't the case. What if Thomas Wayne wasn't his father? If that was the case then who could be his father. Thomas Wayne was a doctor so he'd probably mix with other doctors. That's when I thought of Professor Hugo Strange, who I've always liked as a character anyway (maybe because he's so under-used), It made far more sense, in my opinion, for Batman's father to be some weird obsessive psycho genius like Hugo than some mild-mannered doctor like Thomas.

Anyway, that's how I originally came up with the idea (quite a while back), and I was going to write a story called Strange Days where the big ending would have involved Hugo revealing this to Batman.

And then I thought of The Empire Strikes Back, and Luke and Darth, and I realized that it might all come across as a bad Star Wars rip-off, so I thought about it some more. I thought about Hugo and psychology and eventually thought about the Oedipus complex and remembered the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles (which I studied many years ago in school). It seemed such an incredibly sick and twisted idea to impose on Batman that, even though I thought about it a lot, I decided not to write it.

But then, as I read more and more fan fiction, I began to change my mind. I read other stories that were in the same sick and twisted ballpark, and so thought it was time to tell the story.

**Chapter One**

_Author's Notes_

The story didn't really fall into place until I picked Barbara Gordon to be my narrator. I figured that if I told it from Batman's point of view it would just be incredibly depressing, whereas using Barbara as a narrator meant that I could interject a little humor here and there.

Anyway, this first chapter is basically trying to trick the reader that Batman is dead (rather than the unnamed Hugo) and that Barbara Gordon is a murderess (which she isn't) in the hope that the reader will be interested enough to stick around to Chapter Two.

_Annotations_

The title "Barbara Gordon: Murderess" is a nod to the "Bruce Wayne: Murderer" storyline that ran through the Batman titles, starting with Batman: The 10-Cent Adventure in February 2002.

Young Barbara Gordon's kidnapping by The Mad Hatter featured in Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's Legends Of The Dark Knight Halloween Special called "Madness". It was also reprinted in the Batman Haunted Knight trade paperback (which is where I came across it).

The bit about Hugo wearing a Batman costume is taken from the comics. In Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy's Prey (Legends Of The Dark Knight 11-15, also collected as a trade paperback) Hugo's shown wearing his Batman costume.

Following a quick bit of research on the newsgroups, it seemed that the thing Hugo was most famous for seemed to be dying. That's why there are the references to it not being the first time that's Hugo's been reported dead. Similarly, Batman's been thought to be dead on various occasions.

_Jack Ryder_ - TV anchorman, also know as The Creeper. The first of many pointless DC references throughout the story. Having read Avitable's Slow Burn 2 (in the DC Elseworlds section) I thought all the references were pretty neat, so I thought I'd try and shoehorn in as many DC references as I could.

_Steve Lombard_ - TV sportscaster from the '70s Superman comics. I doubt if he's appeared post-Crisis.

The teenager at the end of the story, who can summon a hero with a magic word, is Kid Eternity. He's bringing Hugo back to life due to his post-hypnotic suggestion (explained in chapter 8). When I started writing this chapter it looked like Kid Eternity, who was killed in JSA 1, was being brought back to life in the DC Universe, since he turned up at the end of JSA 47. One of the reasons I originally put this story in the DC Elseworlds category was to cope with any continuity upsets like this, but I finally decided that it didn't really belong there and moved it to the Batman category.

_Deleted Scene_

When I made Barbara Gordon the narrator, I had to lose one of the cameo appearances that I had planned for later in the story, because I couldn't figure out a way to fit it in the story anymore. Here's that deleted scene (which has previously appeared in my Bio):

* * *

On the way out, Batman stumbled on a pair of children locked in a heated conversation.

"You're the girl. You get to be the dumb blonde one," said the red-haired boy.

"No, I want to be Awk'man!" said the little girl, shaking her fist.

"OK, I'll be Mer'man," said the boy, backing down.

"Now, now, children," said a smiling Batman, as he interceded, "I really think you mean Hawkman and Aquaman, and I'm sure Black Canary wouldn't appreciate being referred to as a dumb blonde."

The little girl turned to him, "Don't be so stoopid, Mister Batsman. Hawkman and Aqu'man aren't in the 'ferior Five."

As Batman exited, red-faced, the little girl, whose blonde hair was tied with a red bow, turned to the red haired boy. "Things sure were easier when the grown-ups didn't understan' us, Dollboy."

The three year old boy held his open hand to his forehead. "Oh, to be young again." he said wistfully, remembering his lost youth.

* * *

The children were Sugar and Spike, and they were talking about Dumb Bunny, Merryman, and Awkwardman from The Inferior Five.

**Chapter Two**

_Author's Notes_

Massive information dump chapter. Way too much exposition in retrospect. At the time I just wanted to get to Chapter 9 and its cool Adamantium batarangs as fast as possible. I originally wrote this as just an Instant Messaging conversation (having recently discovered Instant Messaging), but then felt this was cheating, and also felt that I was copying off a story I'd recently read (dupidnavagog's Wayne's Legacy in the Batman Beyond section which also featured an Instant Messaging chapter) and rewrote it all.

_Annotations_

The title "Unfinished Words" refers to OR (Oedipus Rex), Joker (which might actually have been an unfinished Jocasta), and the conversation between Barbara and Snapper. It's also, completely unconnectedly, the title of a song by The Rutles.

_Lois_ - Lois Lane.

_Snapper Carr_ - Non-superhero character. Most famous for hanging out with the Justice League of America and, more recently, Hourman and Young Justice.

_He's betrayed the JLA_ - In Justice League of America issue 77. Snapper's version of events was retold in Hourman issue 16.

**_chicksLoveTheCarr:_**_ clicks fingers _- Snapper's name is taken from Batman's line to Chase Meridian in Batman Forever "It's the car, right? Chicks love the car." The clicking of fingers is why Snapper got his nickname Snapper in the first place.

_that Rick guy_ - Snapper Carr had a phone conversation with Marvel Comics' Rick Jones at the start of Young Justice 39. At the time of writing this chapter Rick had been stuck in the Microverse for ages in Marvel's Captain Marvel comic, which is why Snapper hadn't been in touch with him recently.

_YJ finishing_ - at the time of writing, the Young Justice comic had just finished.

_made him look years younger_ - the reason he looks years younger is that he keeps getting resurrected from the dead by Kid Eternity and therefore doesn't age.

_Resurrection Man_ - There was a Challengers Of The Unknown villain of this name and also a DC superhero. Every time they died they came back with a new power.

_It passed all the Allen tests_ - Barry Allen (the original Flash) was also a police scientist, so I made up these test that he could have devised. In case you're wondering, the test for a clone is to carbon date it - I saw them do it on an episode of Cleopatra 2525 so it must work.

_mandroid_ - androids that Hugo Strange created.

_Bizarro_ - Pre-Crisis, they were from another planet. Post-Crisis, they were bad clones.

_he wasn't only really dead, he was really most sincerely dead_ - this is paraphrasing a line from one of the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz film.

_To the batpole!_ - A reference to the '60s Batman TV series. In case you want to argue that they wouldn't have this, let alone the Batman Forever film, in the DC Universe, I offer in my defense a scene in an early issue of Sovereign Seven where they're obviously arguing over who's the best Batman, Val or Michael, and they end up deciding on Adam. How the TV series and films fit in chronologically with the DC Universe I wouldn't like to guess.

_the Joker incident_ - The Joker is, of course, a Batman villain, and the incident referred to is where The Joker shot Barbara Gordon, paralyzing her from the waist down (this occurred in Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's The Killing Joke graphic novel).

_he'd wrecked both our career paths_ - as well as paralyzing Barbara Gordon, putting an end to her previous career as Batgirl, The Joker was also behind Snapper Carr's betrayal of the Justice League in the aforementioned Justice League of America 77.

_JLA_ - Justice League of America. Bunch of costumed heroes who save the universe a lot. Besides Oracle, their roster includes such luminaries as Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, The Martian Manhunter, Plastic Man, and, possibly, Santa Claus.

_Hugo knows Batman is Bruce Wayne_ - Hugo learnt this during Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers' run on Detective Comics in the late '70s.

_Huntress_ - Gotham superheroine. Pre-Crisis she was the Earth-2 Batman's daughter, post-Crisis she was a mobster's daughter.

_"Smelly Cat", the song Phoebe plays_ - this is a vague attempt at a clue on my part. Not the Smelly Cat bit (although, depending on your pronunciation, "seedy puss" may rhyme with Oedipus), but the "Phoebe plays" bit. Oedipus Rex is one of Sophocles' "Theban plays".

_a bunch of videos of Friends, along with some videos of Dinosaurs (the sitcom)_  
- these are Hugo's incredibly unhelpful attempts at clues to what OR stands for. Oedipus was the king of Thebes (as opposed to Pheebs, the Friends character), whereas Dinosaurs had a baby (called Baby) whose catchphrase was "Love The Mama!". Sitcoms that I also considered including where "My Two Dads" and "My Mother The Car" (where a dead mother comes back to life as, you guessed it, a car) but I was afraid they were too obvious.

_a knocked-over bonsai _- another pathetic attempt at a clue from Hugo. A bonsai is a tiny tree, and "tiny tree" is an anagram of "Eternity" (this anagram is one of the few things I can remember from Grant Morrison's Kid Eternity mini-series).

_dressed in cheap lingerie_ - In Moench and Gulacy's Prey story, Hugo was often shown sat in his apartment sitting with a lingerie-clad mannequin (although I couldn't say for certain whether the lingerie was cheap or not)

_Leslie Thompkins_ - Dr. Leslie Thompkins is a character from the Batman comics. She's a friend of Bruce and Alfred and she knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman. She also helped comfort the young Bruce Wayne following the death of his parents.

_Ray Palmer_ - AKA The Atom, diminutive superhero.

_STAR Labs_ - Scientific laboratories in the DC Universe.

_J'onn_ - J'onn J'onnz AKA The Martian Manhunter. Likes: Oreo cookies. Dislikes: Fire.

_Superman_ - obscure DC superhero introduced in 1938.

_Batman doesn't want to. He wants to figure it own on his own_ - this mirrors the play Oedipus Rex. If Oedipus had just put his feet up and not started investigating then he'd have lived happily ever after. As it was, his wife/mother killed herself and he blinded himself. On the bright side he did get mentioned in a fanfic a couple of thousand years later, but it's hardly compensation. Likewise, Batman ignores everyone's advice and continues investigating this non-crime (a dead man killing himself) and at the end of the day tragedy results.

_the mystery woman's in great shape_ - that's because she's a circus performer in her prime. Dick Grayson's mother to be exact (I assume you figured that out, I was hardly subtle).

_She's also got traces of rope burns on her arms and legs_ - I'd guess this would be an occupational hazard for a trapeze artist.

_Also, all of her hair's dyed black _- a complete red herring, as her hair's black anyway, as is revealed later on in the story. The reason Hugo, and I, did this, was merely to widen the range of possible suspects for the mystery woman.

_Hugo's final word, as reported by an eye witness. "Joker"_ - or it could have been an unfinished "Jocasta", the name of Oedipus's wife/mother.

_I've got a motive. A great motive_ - Barbara's motive is that she doesn't want Bruce to find out that Hugo, rather than Thomas, is his father, because of any unknown effect it might have on Bruce. It might drive him insane. It might make him give up being Batman. Who knows?

**_hugoAGoGo _**- Hugo's name is taken from Hugo A-Go-Go, the villain in the '60s cartoon show Bat Fink.

**Chapter 3**

_Author's Notes_

I hadn't originally planned to give away Hugo's relation to Bruce so early in the story, but did so for the following reasons. The wrong answer that Batman came up with to The Riddler's clue (it was the boy's mother) actually gave away the identity of the mystery woman (which I somehow didn't realize when I originally came up with the riddle). I had Barbara blurt out the "right" answer just to prevent the reader from working out the mystery woman's identity too soon. Also, more importantly, I was getting fed up with Barbara moaning about this secret she had to keep, which was adding a bit of a gloomy air to the narrative. In addition, I was worried to what lengths The Batman would go to if he thought that Barbara was keeping a secret from him, and I decided that I really didn't want to find out.

_Annotations_

The title "Mad" refers to Mad comic (where the opening paragraph draws its inspiration from), as well as to the inmates of Arkham Asylum and the fact that Bruce gets some news that might drive him insane.

The dream in the first paragraph is a self-indulgent reprise of a line I've used in some of my other works of fan fiction. The line comes from Mad's "Batboy and Rubin" story (with Batboy replaced by Batman). The bit about getting the quote right refers to the fact that, whilst double-checking it for this story, I realized that I'd always misquoted it in the past.

_"Listen, Bats, this is urgent. You can't trust the dame. Me and her have a lot in common and ..."_ - we later learn, in Chapter 8, that this is actually being said by Boston Brand, AKA Deadman, who's taken over The Joker's body to warn Batman about Hugo's plan. In case you're wondering he couldn't simply take over Hugo's body or Kid Eternity's body, and finish things off relatively correctly, because they've both technically died and are therefore off limits to him. Anyway, the dame and him do have a lot in common - they were both trapeze artists murdered during their acts.

_Miss Quinzel_ - Harleen Quinzel, who later became the villainess, and The Joker's girlfriend, Harley Quinn.

_I'm supposed to pose you an incredibly complicated riddle_ - the reason for all the riddles is that, aside from his unique family situation, Oedipus was also famous for solving the riddle of the Sphinx.

_E. Nigma_ - Edward Nigma AKA The Riddler.

_off the coast of Paradise Island, long ago and be curing us with a purple ray _- On Wonder Woman's Paradise Island they have a purple ray that can cure all medical afflictions, or at least they did in pre-Crisis continuity. If they've not got it anymore in post-Crisis continuity, then this must just be insane babbling on The Joker's part.

_Insanity's ugly, it's not just some cute little red-haired girl_ - the cute little red-haired girl being referred to, who makes appearances later on in this chapter, is Delirium of the Endless (from Neil Gaiman's The Sandman).

_"You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!" The Joker shouts_ - this is The Joker quoting (or attempting to quote - I didn't check whether I got the quote right) Jack Nicholson's character from the movie "A Few Good Men". Jack Nicholson, as you know, played The Joker in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman movie.

As mentioned in the author's notes, both of the possible answers to The Riddler's riddle (it's his mother, it's not his real father) are clues to Hugo's plan (the mystery woman is his mother, Hugo is his real father).

_some kid named Robby with an identity crisis_ - Robby Reed, who could become a different hero each time in the original Dial H For Hero series.

_another kid who says he can see dead people_ - Kid Eternity who can summon dead people

_a guy called Irwin who keeps popping up_ - Irwin Schwab AKA Ambush Bug. The popping up is a reference to his teleportation ability.

_a group of heroes with an inferiority complex_ - The Inferior Five, comedy superhero team from the '60s

_Dumb Bunny_ - Female member of the Inferior Five.

_However, I tried tracking her down through some detective agencies, and this girl Angel at one of them managed to find her straight away_ - Angel is Angel O'Hara of Angel And The Ape fame. Dumb Bunny's related to her, which is why she could find her so quickly.

_Merry, Girl Of A Thousand Gimmicks, who turned out to be not so merry after all. She ended it all when her sea monkeys died_ - at the time of writing I'd forgotten that Merry appeared in Young Justice as a member of Old Justice, so she isn't actually dead as Barbara suggests here. However, as I also read shortly after writing this on a Justice Society newsgroup, in an issue of Infinity, Inc. Hank King Jr. states that his mother (Merry) is dead, so she might be dead after all.

_some guy called Access who seems to have created his own fantasy world_ - Access first appeared in the Marvel Vs DC mini-series. He's a character who can cross between the Marvel and DC Universes.

_S. Knight_ - this is probably Sandra Knight AKA Phantom Lady, who was a member of a group of superheroes called the Freedom Fighters.

_Shining Knight_ - Golden Age superhero. He was a knight, Sir Justin, who'd been transported through time, along with his winged horse, Winged Victory. He was one of the eight members of The Seven Soldiers of Victory. I don't know if he's gay.

_There's a few more but they're really obscure_ - No, there weren't. I couldn't think of any more (apart from Looker of The Outsiders who I was going to say had a self-image problem - but I forgot to include her).

_Hugo also had a file on me. I've still not managed to bring myself to read it_ - she finally reads it in Chapter 7.

_Quite a while ago some extra members were added to the JLA_ - In JLA 16 to be exact.

_Plastic Man was a former criminal_ - indeed he was, Eel O'Brien.

_The Huntress came from a mob family_ - the Bertinellis.

_and the less said about Orion's dad the better_ - Orion's dad is Darkseid, a major bad guy of the DC Universe.

_Thomas Wayne_ - Bruce Wayne's father. Although, for the purpose of this story, he isn't really.

_"It looks like it's time to call in Nightwing."_ - although the narrative doesn't make it very clear, Batman's saying this. He's calling in Nightwing so that he can pretend to be Batman if necessary, and thus foil Hugo's plan (or so he thinks).

**Chapter 4**

_Author's Notes_

This is my favorite chapter, and it wrote itself (as much as anything ever writes itself). Unfortunately it doesn't progress the plot in any way, shape or form. It was originally intended to contain what ended up in Chapter 5 (more Arkham visits), but I just couldn't be bothered visiting Arkham again straight away, and I just felt like an action scene (not that I particularly like action scenes, they invariably tend to work better in a visual medium like comics than they do in fan fiction).

_Annotations_

_Killing Joker_ - The title's based on "The Killing Joke", the Batman graphic novel by Moore and Bolland (and previously the name of a band). It's not obvious from the title whether it's The Joker being killed or The joker doing the killing, and I like that, although it wasn't the least bit intentional.

_you, of all people, should know the answer to that_ - Batman thinks that Barbara should figure out that OR stands for Oedipus Rex because she's Oracle, and an oracle features heavily in the tale of Oedipus Rex.

_I think it's best if you look after the woman from now on_ - Now that Batman's figured out that the mystery woman's his mother, he's making sure that they're no longer in close proximity to one another.

_But you've not let her meet any of us until now, not even Alfred_ - I wasn't sure how long Alfred had been in service with the Waynes, so I thought it safest not to let him meet the mystery woman (even though she'd be unrecognizable in her mask).

_Don't keep secrets from me again, and never ever trust Snapper Carr to keep his mouth shut_ - Batman's implying that Snapper told him about Barbara sending the mandroid to kill Hugo. As we find out later, Batman may be lying.

_On the drive home, having advised my passenger, who was wearing a Batman mask, to try and look inconspicuous_ - this was inspired by a line from the '60s Batman TV series, where Batman tells Robin that the two of them, dressed in their superhero outfits, should try and look inconspicuous.

_The Joker stays attached like some demonic red hood ornament_ - The Joker used to be a criminal called The Red Hood. This reference is the sole reason that I had the mandroid filled with artificial blood.

_Some call him the Space Cowboy, some call him the Gangster of Love..._ - Barbara's paraphrasing the lyrics from "The Joker" by The Steve Miller Band (although my favorite rendition of the song came from Homer Simpson).

_Can I call you Myst?_ - Myst seemed like a good name for the mystery woman. In case you're wondering I've only ever played the game of the same name once, for about half an hour, and was never tempted to play it again. For the record, my favorite adventure game (apart from text-only Infocom ones) is Zork: Grand Inquisitor, but that would have been a silly name to give her.

_During my early teens, I'd hang out there full time, just to avoid my father and his drinking_ - apparently Barbara's real father, Commissioner Gordon's brother, was an alcoholic.

_Uncle Jim_ - Commissioner Gordon

_Mall Gordon, Member of The Teen Tantrum Corps_ - depending on how you pronounce the word "mall", this may vaguely rhyme with Hal Jordan, Member of The Green Lantern Corps. For some reason I think that things that rhyme with other things are inherently funny - I blame this on reading too many Mad magazines during my formative years.

_lmao_ - This is short for "laughing my ass off". Despite working with computers for a living, I'm completely no fait with all this net lingo, and only discovered this abbreviation a month or so before writing this chapter.

_Cassie_ - Cassandra Cain AKA the new Batgirl. After I'd written a few chapters containing Cassandra, I noticed that, in the comic, Barbara tends to call her Cass rather than Cassie. Sorry if I confused anybody by referring to her as Cassie throughout the story.

_Deleted Scene_

Another self-indulgent fan fiction induced dream sequence almost found it's way into this chapter:

_Against my better judgement, I read some fan fiction before going to bed._

_My sleep's interrupted by a dream of Bruce. The news I gave him today has destroyed him, and, like his father before him, he's turned to a life of crime. Joining forces with The Penguin, he's taken over the whole of Gotham's underworld. But that's not enough for Bruce._

_Also, in my dream, The Penguin is just that - a cartoon penguin, whereas Bruce seems to be a flying mouse with a giant cranium._

_The Penguin asks Bruce what they're going to do tonight, now that they've taken over Gotham. Bruce ponders for a moment, and then replies:_

_"Why, Pengy, we're going to do what we'll do every night from now on. Try and take over the world!"_

_"Brilliant, BWayne, narf narf," says Pengy jumping for joy._

_I wake up screaming. When will I ever learn?_

**Chapter 5**

_Author's Notes_

When I wrote the clues in Chapter 3, I figured that I'd come up with something interesting for Poison Ivy and Mr. Freeze to say to Batman by the time I came to write about them. Unfortunately, I didn't. Poison Ivy's information was originally going to be revealed later in the story by the original Red Tornado (who was revealed to be dead in Young Justice, but I was going to say she faked her death just so that she wouldn't get pestered by supervillains trying to get even and superheroes begging for her help). However, since (after the ending of JSA 47) I thought they were going to re-introduce Kid Eternity, I was afraid that in the upcoming fiftieth issue they'd use him to summon all the dead JSA heroes (the original Sandman, Mr Terrific and Red Tornado) to help in the big battle. Seeing that this would conflict with my storyline (which, as it turns out, it wouldn't have done) and also because it seemed to be going off at a bit of a tangent from the rest of the story, I decided to ditch the Ma Hunkel segment.

_Annotations_

_A Case Of Myst-Taken Identity_ - the title is just a bad pun. It refers to Myst taking Barbara's Batgirl identity, and also to Barbara mistaking Myst for Mr. Freeze's wife, Nora.

_Ronald McDonald_ - the McDonald's fast food chain's red haired clown.

_Dick would have understood_ - Dick is Dick Grayson, the original Robin (now Nightwing).

_the shatterproof Plexiglas that keeps her pheromones at bay_ - I have to confess at this stage that, for the past ten years, the only Batman stories I've read (apart from his appearances in the JLA and the very occasional issue of Legends of The Dark Knight) are those written by Jeph Loeb, Bob Gale and Frank Miller. In order to bluff my way through this story I was helped a great deal by the Internet and Scott Beatty's Batman Encyclopedia. That's where I found out about the Plexiglas.

_Dr. Victor Fries_ - Mr. Freeze's real name.

_I hear the sound of a coin being tossed_ - the coin actually lands good side up, so Harvey doesn't tell Batman about his traumatic origins.

_Come back after your vacation_ - Two-Face is referring to Batman's (or rather, Nightwing's) forthcoming trip to Rann.

_It's a doll, with big cheeks and a Flash costume_ - It's Cheeks, the Toy Wonder, from the first issue of Ambush Bug.

_Arnold Wesker_ - The Ventriloquist's real name.

_The grave and the gold_ - The Ventriloquist (or rather his dummy) pronounces b's as g's. This is how The Ventriloquist would pronounce "The Brave and The Bold" (the name of a DC comic which started off as a showcase comic and then went on to feature Batman team-ups).

**Chapter 6**

_Author's Notes_

When I started writing this story, I also started reading the Birds of Prey comic, just to try and get a feel for Barbara Gordon's character. It occurred to me that, by this point, the readers must wonder what Black Canary's doing while all this is taking place, so this chapter attempts to resolve this situation. I originally wrote this as just a conversation between Barbara and Dinah (AKA The Black Canary), but was afraid that, since some of the conversation related incidents that had happened since the last chapter, some readers might think they'd accidentally skipped a chapter. So, I rewrote the start of it, and also introduced Catwoman (or rather a mandroid of her) into the story, just so that I could use the title "The Cat And The Canary". Until I got to this chapter, I wasn't planning to feature Catwoman in the story at all.

_The Cat and The Canary_ - This is the title of a Bob Hope film. Aside from the fact that, at one point, he had his own DC comic, it was also his 100th Birthday on the week I posted this chapter. The title also refers to Catwoman and Black Canary (who turn out to be the same character).

_Dumb and Dumber_ - Sophisticated comedy of the '90s starring Jim Carrey and directed by the Farrelly brothers.

_Gold_ - A member of a superhero team of robots, The Metal Men. They had electronic brains called responsometers which resulted in them having human emotions.

_I tried to sell your giant penny_ - this was Two-Face's giant penny that Batman kept in the trophy room of the Batcave.

_I've had to put up with this sort of stuff for months: the Cowl and the Pussycat getting hot and heavy_ - this is a reference to the first couple of issues of Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee's Hush storyline. One of the reasons that I finally got round to writing this story was that I was afraid that Hugo Strange would be the main villain in Hush (is it a coincidence that Hugo and Hush are both four letter words beginning HU?).

_Jack Marshall_ - a really obscure one, this. I had to look up his name on the Internet because I'd completely forgotten it. Jack Marshall was the hero of Lewis Shiner and Tom Sutton's DC series The Hacker Files.

_Will Magnus_ - Creator of the Metal Men.

_handing me the object, that turns out to be a camera of some kind_ - I don't know who planted this camera there. Hugo to spy on Barbara, Batman to spy on Barbara, or Jack's just pretended to find it in an attempt to drum up some business.

_"But I've only just had a complete overhaul," I groan_ - when I wrote this chapter she'd just had a new security system fitted in the Birds of Prey comic.

_Great. Well, see you next Wednesday_ - "See you next Wednesday" is a phrase taken from John Landis films. There's no real reason why I used it in the context of the story.

_Bye. Thanks for the memory_ - Another Bob Hope reference. "Thanks For The Memory" is the song associated with him.

_Hugo had had another son, before Bruce, who'd followed his father into medicine and become a surgeon, but, following a car crash, his career had been ruined so he'd turned to alcohol and Hugo had never heard from again_ - this is a reference to Marvel's Dr Strange and his origin. Either Hugo's son was the DC Universe's version of Dr Strange who rather than looking for The Ancient One just drank himself to death. Alternatively he did find The Ancient One, and The Ancient One's house existed in a nexus between comic book Universes (Stephen Strange gravitated towards the Marvel Universe because his alliterated name fitted in better there). Or, then again, maybe he met Access while drinking and Access let him into the Marvel Universe so he could look for The Ancient One. Who knows?

_There was also a nephew - an archaeologist who Batman had met previously during his JLA adventures_ - the science-fiction hero Adam Strange (who, I hasten to add, is not related to Hugo in the comics as far as I know).

_They're watching Back To The Future on TV_ - another feeble attempt at a clue. In this movie, Marty McFly almost gets romantically involved with his young mother. I originally wanted them to be watching New York Stories (which has the Woody Allen segment called Oedipus Wrecks), but I wasn't sure if New York existed in the DC Universe because I though that Gotham City was the DC Universe's New York (which would also mean that, in the DC Universe, most of Woody Allen's movies are set in Gotham City - I wonder what the movie Manhattan was called in the DC Universe?).

_she's walking out with an old red top, a green bikini and some yellow sheets_ - these are the vital ingredients to make a Robin outfit (based on Dick Grayson's classic Robin outfit).

_It's late at night and I'm sitting in a noisy bar. A man leans against my table_  
- The mysterious man is the real Batman.

**Chapter 7**

_Author's Notes_

When I decided that I was going to feature Rann in the story (which was inspired by Avitable's Slow Burn story in the DC Elseworlds section that also featured some heroes being hit by beams, which I mistakenly guessed were zeta-beams), I thought I better find out what Adam Strange was up to these days. The last time I could remember him appearing (apart from a guest spot in a JLA issue) was in a mini-series of the late '80s that I hadn't bothered getting. Then, before I'd got round to typing his name in a search engine, a trade paperback of the aforementioned series suddenly appeared. Naturally, for the sake of my story, I picked it up straight away and read it. Unfortunately, by the end of the story, they'd got rid of zeta-beams and launched Ranagar into space, so when I first wrote this chapter I went out of my way to say how the mega-zeta-beam had malfunctioned and how they'd relocated Ranagar on a new planet, Rann 2. Then, before posting the chapter, I thought I better check on the Internet just to see if anything else had happened to Adam in the interim. It's then that I found out that Mark Waid in JLA and James Robinson in Starman had basically undone everything that I'd tried to explain my way around, so I had to take out all my tortuous continuity work-arounds that weren't needed anymore.

_Annotations_

_We'd Like To Know A Little Bit About You For Our Files_ - This is the first line of Simon & Garfunkel's song Mrs Robinson and ties in to the chapter itself in numerous ways. It refers to Hugo's files (obviously), visiting Arkham (the song itself is about a woman being admitted to a mental hospital), Poison Ivy's attempted seduction of the younger Robin (the song's from the film The Graduate), and is also a clue as to Myst's real identity (Robin-Son - Dick Grayson's her son).

_"Holy headgear, Barbara," Cassie exclaims, punching her hand for added emphasis_ - this is intended to invoke memories of the way the original Robin acted in the '60s Batman TV series.

_Fortunately, the being known as Swamp Thing, shortly after his noble, but doomed, attempt to convert Gotham into a forest, found himself on the planet Rann and managed to convert the wasteland into lush vegetation _- these events occurred in Swamp Thing 53 and Swamp Things 57 & 58 respectively.

_The land however was not the only thing that had been barren - no children had been born on Rann for many cycles _- These details and Alanna's death during childbirth are described in Richard Bruning and Adam and Andy Kubert's Adam Strange: The Man Of Two Worlds series (recently collected in a trade paperback).

_Jonathan Crane _- AKA The Scarecrow.

_a Zeta-beam_ - beam that transports people (mainly Adam Strange) from Earth to Rann.

_I'll stick to Harvey. He may not be much of a looker, but when he's good he's very good, and when ..."_ - "… he's bad he's even better," which is a variation on a line usually attributed to Mae West.

_Jervis Tetch_ - AKA The Mad Hatter.

_She may as well have gone in wearing a sign saying "Eat Me"_ - an Alice in Wonderland reference.

_"Sure, cool game," she replies. "They're making a sequel."_ - This is a reference to the PC game American McGee's Alice, and at the time of writing they're developing a sequel American McGee's Oz. As far as I know there are no plans for American McGee's Snow in which you toss your diminutive chums at the enemy (and view their trajectories via the wonder of the Dwarf-cam) which results in the opponent bursting into a sneezing fit, falling asleep, becoming euphoric, etc.

_It contains my own secret ingredient_ - I've no idea what the secret ingredient is. I'm leaving it to the reader's imagination to come up with something suitably innocent or sinister.

_You don't know what crazy, mixed-up kind of insect you're dealing with_ - another awful clue for all you millions of anagram fans out there: a mixed-up "insect" is "incest".

_Hugo let me set most of the riddles you know. All of the numeric ones are mine_ - I let The Mad Hatter set numeric clues because Lewis Carroll was a Mathematics professor.

_I wanted to use complex numbers for them all - I thought it would be more fitting_ - he wanted to use "complex" numbers because of the Oedipus "complex".

_He also let me design a hat for his friend_ - The Mad Hatter specializes in mind-controlling headgear.

_Wow, you've got a lot of comic books for a grown-up_ - this ties in with the mandroid Hatter's comments in the next chapter.

_Alice In Chains_ - A music group of some sort.

_The Prisoner_ - Sixties cult TV show (and also, at one point, a DC mini-series) that featured Patrick McGoohan as Number Six who had the catchphrase "I'm not a number. I'm a free man."

_Freddy Freeman AKA CM3 AKA Captain Marvel Junior_ - A member, along with Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel, of the Marvel Family.

_Well, Mordru killed him recently_ - JSA issue 1.

_it still wasn't his time to die so he got back out of Heaven on the same technicality as the first time round_ - Kid Eternity's origin is that he was mistakenly taken to Heaven before it was his time to die so he got to return to Earth with a fat, bald sidekick and the ability to summon any person in mythology or history back to life.

_Is it right that he's an agent of Chaos and doesn't actually summon the historic figures but merely demonic copies of them?_ - Apparently, according to my minimalist research on the Internet, Grant Morrison established that Kid Eternity actually summoned demonic duplicates in his Kid Eternity mini-series. Unfortunately, I didn't remember any of this when planning the story (and I still can't remember it despite having read the mini-series when it came out), so the easiest thing to do was just have Freddy deny it. Of course, he might just be denying it to maintain the Marvel Family's wholesome image. You might prefer to take the demonic duplicate point of view (it negates the icky incest aspect of the story), but this wouldn't explain how Kid Eternity managed to summon Deadman away from inhabiting The Joker's body (unless, of course, Deadman isn't really all he appears to be but is actually just a demonic copy of Boston Brand (a vengeance demon?)).

_Harleen Quinzel_ - AKA Harley Quinn.

_The Joker came along and unraveled her again_ - in Paul Dini and Bruce Timm's Mad Love graphic novel.

_Gordon, you're a moron_ - This line was inspired by the punk hit "Jilted John" by Jilted John.

_The encounter affected her more than I realized _-this was based on Cassandra's incredibly upset reaction to Superboy's body language when he saw her in a swimsuit in Batgirl 39 (the latest issue at the time of writing the chapter). I wondered how she'd react to the body language of some of the Arkham inmates.

_she tucks into a chicken and egg salad_ - another clue, and another Paul Simon song. This type of salad is also known as a "mother and child reunion", which is what was taking place on Rann during this chapter.

**Chapter 8**

_Author's Notes_

This chapter starts trying to tie up all the various plot threads I started dangling earlier on in the story. I didn't originally plan to have The Ventriloquist turn up in this and the next chapter but Evil Lil Katbird had asked if I'd be using him again in her review of chapter five. I have to confess that I'd never read a comic featuring him so I was loathe to use him again, but then coincidentally I received a promotional comic for the Batman: Dark Tomorrow console game that featured the character. Having read his one page appearance therein I decided I was an expert on the character and decided to re-introduce him into the story.

_Annotations_

_Heroes And Villains_ - The title of a Beach Boys song, and also the title of an episode of the UK sitcom Only Fools And Horses in which the two main characters dressed as Batman and Robin.

_Standing in front of me, from left to right, are Catwoman, The Joker and Hugo Strange_ - these three villains all appeared in Batman issue 1.

_Kid Eternity (who's got a flying helmet strapped to his head)_ - The reason I chose a flying helmet was so that it could be strapped securely to his head and therefore not get knocked off easily by a well-aimed batarang. It was not so that I could have Scarface refer to him as Giggles somewhere in the story (an idea that's only just occurred to me).

_Alfred_ - Batman's butler.

_I then clouded her mind with some tricks I'd picked up from Lamont Cranston_ - Lamont Cranston was also known as The Shadow and had the power to cloud men's minds.

_And finally, so that no-one could possibly recognize her, I glued a Batman mask on her_ - nobody can recognize anyone if they're wearing a Batman mask. This is one of the strange rules of the DC Universe but my story relies on it so who am I to quibble?

_Access introduced me to his friend Pete who's an expert on that sort of thing_ - Paste Pot Pete AKA The Trapster. Fantastic Four foe and adhesive expert.

_Boston Brand_ - AKA Deadman. Dead circus performer with the power to take over living people's bodies.

_Boston's got tape over his mouth preventing him from speaking_ - this is so that he can't tell anyone who Myst truly is and spoil the surprise ending to chapter 10.

_Hugo boss _- a reference to a man's fragrance.

_What you call incest, I call family entertainment_ - an interesting definition of incest from Hugo. If I'd have thought of it sooner I'd have been tempted to put "Rated R for family entertainment" at the start of the story.

_"Why, you evil little … unghh"_ - if Barbara had been allowed to finish her sentence she'd have said, to the Catwoman/Black Canary mandroid, "Why, you evil little cat-bird," in tribute to my only reviewer at the time of writing Evil Lil Katbird. If you were one of the original readers who didn't submit a review I bet you're kicking yourself now. You too could have had a corrupted version of your pen-name almost mentioned.

_"I guess that makes you the clown to the left of me," I point out, "because Joker's to the right ... unnggh."_ - Barbara's paraphrasing the lyrics to Stealer's Wheel's "Stuck In The Middle With You", which was the music used in Reservoir Dogs' torture scene.

_"Punish her! Violate her! Terminate Her! Spawn!"_ - This is a reference back to The Mad Hatter having a lot of comic books in the previous chapter. Punisher, Violator, Terminator and Spawn are the comics that The Hatter's got his ideas from. Unfortunately for Barbara Gordon, she lives in the DC Universe where The Hatter can't get DC comics, otherwise he might Thrill 'er with The Unexpected.

_"Hey, Toots, can I grab your gum?"_ - Scarface pronounces b's as g's to comedic effect.

_A young boy who insisted that his parents took him to a Zorro movie_ - Thomas and Martha Wayne were murdered after taking Bruce Wayne to see a Zorro movie.

_Crime Alley_ - This is the place where the Waynes were murdered.

**Chapter 9**

_Author's Notes_

My least favorite chapter. I ended up going off on a tangent with the mandroid Catwoman character, rather than having a cathartic showdown between Batman and Hugo. I also think both Batman and Barbara should have done more to stop the Waynes' latest demise. Barbara saves the day because she's my main character - I'm sure that if I'd written the story from Batman's point of view then he would have sorted everything out while Barbara just sat there.

Barbara's broken leg scene was inspired by a scene in Artemis Hawk's Hawkgirl: First Flight story in the DC Superheroes section.

_Annotations_

Victor Hugo? - Bad title based on the author of The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Les Miserables, etc.

_Hugo says we're going to Metropolis next. He's going to use the Kid to re-unite Superman and Zod_ - General Zod was killed by Superman. It would be bad news for Superman if Zod returned.

_Niles Caulder's Robotman_ - Niles Caulder was The Chief, the leader of the Doom Patrol, and helped created one of their members Robotman by putting Cliff Steele's brain in a robot body.

_Will Magnus' Metal Men_ - A bunch of robotic heroes created by Will Magnus.

_a child prodigy Bernard_ - Bernie The Brain from the Sugar And Spike comics.

_Ivo and Morrow_ - Professor Ivo created the android Amazo. T.O.Morrow created the android Red Tornado. Together they also created Tomorrow Woman.

_Horton_ - Professor Horton created Marvel's first superhero, the android Human Torch (if you want to read any fan fics containing the original Human Torch I'd recommend checking out Evil Lil Katbird's stuff - you can find her in my favorite authors list).

_Von Doom_ - Doctor Victor Von Doom, major league Marvel supervillain and creator of numerous android doombots.

_"When this is over, Garg, Gang Gang"_ - I hope that Scarface means "Bang Bang".

_Ventriloquist after Scarecrow after Mad Hatter after Poison Ivy after Catwoman after Two-Face after Joker after Mr. Freeze after Killer Croc_ - for some reason I missed out The Riddler in this list. I spotted it while I was previewing the document but was too lazy to change it.

_Even a mandroid can die_ - A hilarious rhyming pun on the classic Avengers story "Even An Android Can Cry". The Batman mandroid that Batman uses is the one that was left over from Chapter 2 (i.e. the one that first killed Hugo).

_I don't know what his new batarangs are made of, but they slice straight through the mandroids_ - they're made of Adamantium, super-duper metal of the Marvel Universe.

_Then Batman's firing ropes from his wrists, swinging around the Batcave, and firing nets at the mandroids _- he's got a copy of Spider-Man's webspinners. Tragically, after thinking this up and being amazed how original I was I came across a story "Strange Fruit" by TDX in the Batman section that had Batman spinning webs.

_Go ahead, Hugo, you poor deluded creature_ - "Poor deluded creature" is a Batman line I stole from the '60s TV series.

_Mister Miracle_ - Jack Kirby's super escape artist character.

_Are you laughin' at me, Goston Grand? Do you find me amusin'? Do you think I'm a guffoon? An imgecile?_ - A scene inspired by Joe Pesci's turn in Goodfellas.

_"Don't call me gage,"_ - A line inspired by the film "Barb Wire".

_Sometimes I'm carrying a scythe, sometimes I'm wearing an ankh, sometimes I've got a suit of armor and skis_ - The many faces of Death. The scythe is the traditional Grim Reaper image, the ankh is Death as she appears in The Sandman series, and the armor and skis are a reference to The Black Racer (a character from Jack Kirby's New Gods). It was stated in an early issue of The Sandman that different people perceived The Endless in different ways

_She pretended to be a magical imp_ - In a ludicrous stretch of the imagination I decided to make Bat-Mite the Earth-1 Delirium. Since the only in-continuity Post-Crisis appearance of Bat-Mite I can remember (in an issue of Legends Of The Dark Knight) was as a result of a drug induced hallucination it seemed to tie-in. I was also tempted to have her be Mopee (wouldn't that be a great pen-name for a fan fiction writer?) but that would probably be stretching things a bit too far.

_it was before the big merger_ - the Crisis On Infinite Earths that made the DC Universe so much simpler to understand.

_first rule of Mite Club_ - A reference to the film "Fight Club". First rule of Fight Club - don't mention Fight Club.

_"Joshua."_ - If you've never seen the film War Games, you're probably thinking "Huh?" (or a more eloquent version thereof). Suffice it so say that, in the film, Joshua was the name of Professor Falken's son and the password to get into a military computer he'd worked on.

_I don't meet Death, just some kid claiming to be related to her_ - This is a reference to Daniel, the new Dream, from Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. I wasn't sure if Death was his aunt (since her brother, the old Dream, was his father) or his sister (since he's the new Dream).

**Chapter 10**

_Author's Notes_

I was a bit worried that nobody would get the punchline, so added some more build-up to the final revelation. In retrospect this was a big mistake. As to why I did something so sick and twisted as have Dick Grayson sleep with his mother - it was to remain true to the source material (Oedipus Rex, not Batman), and also to have the story properly qualify as a tragedy. I chose Dick because I couldn't bring myself to have Bruce do it, and also because it would have the most impact on the main characters. Batman would be devastated because he asked Dick to take his place, Barbara would be devastated because of her romantic history with Dick, and Dick would just be devastated.

_Annotations_

_Bad News_ - Awful, awful, awful title. Unfortunately I couldn't think of a decent title at the time, so used this, even though it practically screams out "twist ending" to the reader. Needless to say that I came up with a much better title the next day.

**_hotWheelz:_** - I didn't know what Barbara's Instant Messaging name was, so just made one up.

_Rick's been back in touch_ - Rick Jones had re-appeared from the Microverse by the time I was writing this chapter.

_Anyway, as I said before, I've worked out what OR stands for_ - considering how awful the video clues were, I reckon that Black Canary must have told him.

_Harold_ - the mute diminutive hunchback electronics genius who lives in the Batcave maintaining Batman's equipment. I've never come across him myself, but I figured I better explain where he was for the real Batman fans reading.

_Kid Eternity said he couldn't send her back, not while she had a life inside her_ - inspired by a McGuffin in the film Final Destination 2.

_The Atom's shrunk down to get in there and is currently bouncing around Catwoman's brain_ - this is reminiscent of scenes in one of my favorite bad comics of all time, Brave And The Bold 115, where The Atom controlled a comatose Batman by bouncing on the relevant areas of his cerebellum. That issue also contained the immortal line "the loom of fate weaves an eerie tapestry" which would have made a much better title for this chapter.

_Danger Room_ - Training room used by Marvel's The X-Men.

_Tyler _- AKA the android Hourman.

_Rip Hunter_ - Rip Hunter, Time Master. The last time I saw him was during the Crisis when he was at the end of time with the Linear Men. Apparently, he's also turned up recently in the Superman: Time And Time Again story, and now he's just called Hunter.

_She ran away to join the circus_ - Holy half-brother, Batman. Myst is actually Mrs Grayson, mother of Bruce and Dick.

THE END

That's it. You can stop reading now. Honest. Would I lie to you?

CONGRATULATIONS!

Unbelievably you're the millionth reader and have therefore managed to unlock the Easter egg:

You might be wondering what happened next, so, in a similar fashion to the Bob Hope film Casanova's Big Night, I'm offering you two alternative endings. A happy fluffy version, and a sick, twisted version. Unfortunately they're both sad attempts by the author at humor. One of the lines in the happy fluffy version is stolen without permission from Evil Lil Katbird (needless to say it's the funny one). The end of the sick twisted version is inspired by Terhwa's Sex, Death and Fridges story in the Vertigo section. Enjoy.

**_What Happened Next (the happy fluffy version)_**

Batman listened to Oracle, and couldn't help but laugh.

"I thought something like that might happen," he replied. "That's why I didn't actually send Dick. It was J'onn all along. Ha Ha."

"Phew, that's a relief," said Oracle. "It's not incest, just inter-species necrophilia. Boy, you really had me fooled."

Bruce and Barbara then laughed for as long as was possible with their assorted injuries.

To celebrate the averted disaster, Batman threw a party for everyone involved, and Kid Eternity brought along Elvis to provide the entertainment. Of course, we all know that Elvis isn't dead, it's just that the Kid, during his day job at a burger bar, had become friends with the King.

Batman was glad to see his Danger Room was a roaring success. Admittedly, he had to ban Cassandra after she'd reduced The Mad Hatter mandroid to scrap metal on her first visit, but, on the other hand, Tim couldn't get enough of it. Many's the time he'd spend the whole night in there before crawling out of there battered, bruised and tired, but smiling. Bruce was proud of him. And the mandroids were holding up well, with hardly a mark on them, apart from Poison Ivy who was constantly in need of repair.

Jack Marshall spent all his money to buy a Catwoman mandroid (with Black Canary accessories) that he saw on eBay. They lived happily ever after.

Nine months later J'onn and Myst heard the patter of three pairs of tiny little green feet. As a tribute to America, J'onn decided to name the two boys after presidents (with the obligatory Martian pointless punctuation). After Clark had talked him out of calling either of them L'ex, J'onn settled for G'eorge and P'rez (after Washington and Rickard respectively). Clark didn't have the heart to point out that Prez Rickard had had to resign in disgrace when it was discovered that he was actually Brother Power The Geek with a bad disguise (unfortunately Brother Power's subsequent political disguises were nearly lifelike and went undetected by the American public). The sons took their father's surname of J'onzz, whereas, in accordance with Martian tradition, the daughter O'reo was lumbered with Myst's maiden name of Speedwagon. They all lived happily ever after and eventually P'rez grew up to be America's first green President.

The files that Batman thought belonged to Sandra Knight actually turned out to belong to the Shining Knight. Barbara got Access to introduce The Shining Knight to Northstar - it was love at first sight and they ended up living happily ever after.

Batman ended up marrying both Catwoman and Poison Ivy, after a freak accident during a laboratory experiment ended up splitting him into Batman-Black and Batman-Grey. They lived happily ever after.

Batman introduced Xorn to the Arkham inmates and he cured them all. Apart from The Ventriloquist, that is, who somehow got missed out. The inmates went on to lead productive lives, while Cheeks The Toy Wonder began his rapid ascent to Gotham's major crimelord.

Needless to say that, this being the happy fluffy version, everybody else also lived happily ever after.

THE END

**_What Happened Next (the sick twisted version)_**

Nine months later, Myst had a child. Taking after his mother and father, he was half dead and half alive, split down the middle like a really disgusting version of Two-Face. They named him after Myst's favorite movie star (The Rock) from Myst's favorite movie (which was, ironically enough, The Mummy Returns). Frozen until science could find a remedy, the child lied in stasis for almost a thousand years. Then, the child was defrosted and the defective side of his body replaced with a robotic one. The child grew to resemble his father in looks and talents. Unfortunately his father turned out not to be Dick Grayson (which would just be too sick and twisted to contemplate), but rather the Ranagar resident Sardath, Adam Strange's father-in-law. Of course, in the thousand years young The Rock was frozen, language had changed considerably and his original name had become corrupted. Anyway, to put it simply, that's the secret origin of Tharok (which he'll naturally deny if you ever get a chance to ask him).

* * *

Kid Eternity joined up with Deadman and some other dead heroes he'd summoned (the original Red Tornado, the original Mr Terrific, the original Dr Fate, and Vibe) to form The Ex-Men. After an initially lukewarm reception, the addition of Elvis (who, as we all know, is very dead) as their Snapper Carr figure made them media darlings (as well as funding the team thanks to the Burger King sponsorship deal).

Of course, as the Ex-Men's popularity grew, their lawyers stepped in to protect their copyright. The android Red Tornado had to revert to his human name of John Smith. To tell the truth he was grateful - since the original Tornado had turned up, Bart had started calling him Annabel (he repeatedly pointed out that the original Tornado's name was Abigail, but Bart chose to ignore him). The new Mr Terrific gratefully shortened his name (he'd started to dislike his old name when he'd read in a fan fic that it could be thought of as ostentatious), whereas the new Dr Fate changed his to something more superhero-sounding (he was glad to drop the Dr - people kept asking him for medical advice).

Together, the heroes formerly known as Red Tornado, Mr Terrific and Dr Fate, along with a blind superhero that Access had introduced them to (who'd had to leave the Marvel Universe after a contrived lycanthropy accident), moved to LA and started work as soldiers of fortune. Unfortunately, fortune soldiering is a cut-throat business (fortune being the operative word), and it wasn't long thereafter that, in a tragic case of mistaken identity, the four of them were wrongly arrested for a crime they never committed. While John "Annabel" Smith, Mr T, Fate Man, and Howling Matt Murdock languished in a maximum security stockade, a senior military official, who looked like he was wearing a bad disguise, told reporters: "I love it when a plan comes together."

* * *

Jack Marshall had enjoyed his night of passion with Dinah Lance (never noticing for once that she was a mandroid). It lingered in his mind and he just had to share it. First with an old guy with a white moustache that he met in a bar. He told him how he'd turned up for a date with Barbara Gordon, but she was lying inert on the ground due to, as Dinah had explained to him, being exhausted following a marathon love-making session between Barbara and Dinah following Dinah's early return from holiday. The old guy took exception to what he'd said and started pummeling him repeatedly. Fortunately some police noticed and came over. Unfortunately, the old guy, who turned out to be Barbara's father, showed his badge to the cops and they started to help with the pummeling.

The next night, covered in bruises, he was in a bar and started talking to a blonde guy with a beard. Him and Ollie were getting along great, so he started to tell his story again, this time missing out the Barbara Gordon bit and skipping straight to the hot Dinah Lance action. This also turned out to be a bad idea.

Meanwhile the new superhero team The Ex-Men were turning into The Gloom Patrol. Everyone wanted to go back to Heaven and it wasn't long before Elvis had left the building. This sent Kid Eternity into a suicidal depression which resulted in him taking his life (multiple times in fact, but it still wasn't his time to die so they kept returning him to Earth). As for Deadman, he just couldn't forget all those nights he'd spent alone with the mandroid Dinah Lance. Trying to forget her, he started a series of one-night stands inhabiting the bodies of the most handsome guys he could find. Alas, this made no difference (apart from a sharp rise in the number of celebrity couples splitting up).

Thanks to his computer skills, Jack Marshall had found out where Dinah Lance lived, and so, after his phone messages went unanswered, had decided to pay her a visit. It was as he reached her door that Deadman, in an attempt to see Dinah once more, decided to enter Jack's body.

Dinah opened the door to see the stalker she'd never met before who'd been leaving the weird message on her answer machine. Before Deadman could say anything he found his host body being kicked in the head repeatedly.

One minute Jack Marshall was standing outside Dinah's apartment, the next he was lying on the floor in a heap. Following this, he'd subsequently managed to make his way to casualty. Hopefully that was the one place he'd get some sympathy.

"So, what's your story?" asked the Doctor, shining the light in his eye.

Jack started telling Dr. Pieter Cross the full story, but never got round to finishing it.

* * *

Nightwing and Batman had finally started talking again, much to Batman's chagrin. Dick just kept moaning on about the good old days with The Teen Titans. After a while, Batman had learned not to listen, so didn't hear Dick mention the time that they'd come across a costumed crimefighter called Joshua. Unfortunately, the Adamantium mandroid that The Atom was working on did hear Dick's mention of Joshua and cybernetic cerebellum connections re-fired in her responsometer frying Ray Palmer alive. Moving with speed and stealth, the mandroid quickly dispensed with Dick and Bruce, before settling down with Alfred (who she'd fallen in love with while Hugo and the mandroids had been holding him captive) and living happily ever after.

* * *

Death looked at the seven dead people in front of her.

"So, guys, what happened?"

"I'll go first, since I was the first one here," said Barbara Gordon, sitting on the ground.

_I was sat in front of my monitors, when Kid Eternity and Freddy Freeman walked in. Kid Eternity said that he'd meant to get in touch with me sooner, but he'd been busy with all the Ex-Men stuff. Anyway, he said that he'd got some bad news - I was dead._

_Now, admittedly, I still had a few cuts and bruises from my run-in with Hugo's mandroid, and I wasn't 100 percent recovered yet, but dead seemed a bit of an exaggeration. Needless to say I was slightly surprised, so he went on to explain how the mandroid Black Canary had poisoned my coffee, thus killing me, and how he'd had to retrieve me from Heaven for Hugo, because Hugo had been desperate to explain his dastardly plan to me. Very Sixth Sense, as the mandroid Black Canary had apparently remarked to Kid Eternity at the time._

_I argued that I should have been brought back in my prime - all-walking, all-dancing. The Kid responded that that was what Hugo was expecting, which is why they'd bothered tying up my legs, but in actual fact I'd died in my prime. When I could walk I was just a wannabe Batman, whereas just before I'd died I'd been doing my best work._

_Anyway, I still didn't believe him, so I asked, if I was dead, where my corpse was. He had to admit that he didn't know where the mandroid Black Canary had hidden it, but if I really wanted proof, he'd do what he came here to do._

_"Eternity," he murmured, turning his face away from mine._

_And that's when you showed up. And we've been waiting here ever since._

Death smiled at Barbara Gordon. "Sorry to keep you waiting, but I thought I'd cut corners and wait for the rest to arrive. Besides, there's no rush - we've got all the time in the world."

"I believe it's your turn next," Death said, turning to Dinah Lance.

Dinah, looking confused and embarrassed, started to speak.

_Well, I'm still not sure what happened._

_I'd just sent Kid Eternity and Freddy Freeman to see Barbara, and was getting back to watching TV, when Jack Marshall turns up at the door. Now, since our last encounter, Barbara had explained everything to me, so after profusely apologizing to him I sent him through to see Barbara about the new security system she'd ordered from him._

_Anyway, I got back to watching television, and the next thing I know I'm lying in the street naked with Jack Marshall kissing me. I push him off me, and then suddenly everything goes black._

_And then I'm here with you ._

Death turned towards Jack Marshall, and asked if he wanted to provide any further information.

Averting his gaze from Dinah Lance, Jack Marshall started to speak.

_I turned up at the clock tower to install the new security system that Barbara had asked for, and Dinah Lance opened the door. Needless to say I was wary, but she was really sweet, and we had a nice chat. She told me not be shocked by Barbara's appearance - she'd been involved in an accident, but Dinah was trying to make sure she was comfortable._

_Anyway, I left Dinah and headed towards the main computer room, but when I got there Barbara was nowhere to be seen. I walked around the room, inspecting the existing security system. It was actually one of the better systems - it would provide total protection against an electrical storm and a supply of halon gas would stop any fires instantly. Still, I could see several areas that needed improving. I looked at the floor tiles - one of them was ajar. I moved over to straighten it, but decided to take a look underneath first. That was when I saw Barbara Gordon's corpse staring back at me._

_I straightened the floor tile and backed slowly away. Then I felt a tap on my shoulder._

_It was a young man, he introduced himself as Freddy Freeman._

_I didn't want to alarm him, but I had to protect him from Dinah. I figured that she'd killed Barbara._

_"You stay here," I said, and left the computer room, locking him inside - figuring that he'd be safe in there with the security system to protect him._

_Then, using the utmost stealth, I crept back to where Dinah was._

_She stood there, in front of a mirror, totally unaware of me. Slowly she removed her clothes and, staring with fascination into the mirror, started rubbing her hands all over her body._

_Following all my recent attacks I'd started carrying a gun. "Hold it," I shouted, pointing the gun at her. She turned around and gave an ear-piercing scream. We stood there looking at each other for a few seconds and then suddenly a set of lightning bolts come through the window and start to set the place on fire._

_"Forget shooting me. It can wait. Let's get out of here," shouts Dinah and then heads off in the wrong direction, towards the computer rooms._

_Seconds later, she's unconscious and entangled in a web of fabric that the security system's used to capture her. Meanwhile, I can hear Freddy inside the computer room screaming for Captain Marvel's help. I shout at him not to worry, Dinah's unconscious, and then, somehow, with the smoke gathering all around, I manage to extract her from the web and get her outside. I then start to administer the kiss of life._

_Then she wakes up and pushes me away. I look at her and a car's speeding towards her. I hear the screeching of brakes, but there's no way it will stop in time. Then it somehow does. And then Hugo Strange's body falls on top of her, smashing her skull._

_And then I realize I can still hear the screeching of brakes, and then I feel the car drive into the back of me, and then I see you._

Death turned to Hugo.

"Anything to say?"

_I'd planted a fail-safe post-hypnotic suggestion into Kid Eternity's mind so that whenever he heard a certain pop group's name, he'd summon me back from the dead._

_Anyway, the last thing I remember was appearing next to the top of the clock tower staring at Kid Eternity. He stared at me, and then he stared at my feet. As I stared at my feet gravity intervened and I plunged towards the ground. Fortunately Dinah Lance was there to break my fall. Unfortunately she didn't break it enough._

_So, once again I'm dead._

_But I'll be back! Bwa-ha-ha!_

Death turned to Kid Eternity. "So we meet yet again. You're still not getting into Heaven, you know, no matter how many times you kill yourself."

Kid Eternity shrugged.

_I didn't kill myself. After sending Barbara back to where she belonged, me and Freddy decided to look at the clock tower. We both went outside to look over Gotham City, and then Freddy went back in. I was about to go back in when I discovered that the security system had locked me out. The next thing I know there's a lightning storm. Then I look down and can't believe my eyes. A guy rushes out carrying a lady._

_"A bare naked lady's down there and I'm stuck up here," I say to myself and then, I'm not sure why, I say "Eternity" and Hugo Strange is suddenly facing me, and then I get struck by lightning. Lightning and clock towers - I thought that only happened in the movies._

Death looked at Freddy Freeman.

"I guess I'm last," said Freddy and then, as had the others, he started to talk in italics:

_That crazy Jack guy locked me in the computer room. Then I heard a scream and all the monitors shattered, bursting into flames. I kept trying to transform to CM3 but the stupid security system blocked my lightning. The next thing I know I'm being suffocated by halon gas._

Death started to lead the six people away, but then turned her head to look at the man they'd left behind.

"So, Boston, what are you doing here?"

Boston Brand, surprised that Death could see him, started to tell his version of events.

"Well, I'd just entered a Dinah …"

THE END


End file.
